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I 



THE 

REAL LINCOLN 



FROM THE TESTIMONY OF HIS 
CONTEMPORARIES 



BY 

CHARLES L. C. MINOR, M. A., LL. D. 



Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged 



KIC'HMONd,' VA. ? - • 
Everett Waddey Co. 
1904 



LIBf?ftSVof.CONSR1:SS 
Two Oocics Received 

JUL 18 1904 
5 Cooyrlarht Entry 

CLASS C^ XXe. No. 

COPY B 






i4<vcolniaoa 



Copyright, 1904 
by Everett Waddey Company 



CONTENTS. 

Page 

IntrodiK'tioii by the Editors 5 

Sketch of the Author 7 

Preface 9 

CHAPTER I. 
Was Lincohi Heroic? 15 

CHAPTER II. 
Was Lincohi a Christian? 25 

CHAPTER III. 

Lincohi's Jokes and Stories • 29 

CHAPTER IV.. 
Estimates of Lineohi 33 

CHAPTER V. 
Did Lincohi Ever Intend that the Masters Be Paid for Their 

Slaves 41 

CHAPTER VI. 
Opposition to Al)ohtion Before the War 45 

CHAPTER VII. 
Secession Long Threatened. Coercion Never Seriously Thought 

of Till 1861 57 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Change of the Issue — Star of the West 72 

CHAPTER IX. 

Resistance in Congress 77 

CHAPTER X. 

Opposition in the Regular Army 81 

CHAPTER XI. 
Opposition in the Volunteer Army 84 

CHAPTER XII. 
Opposition to the Emancipation Proclamation 89 

CHAPTER XIII. 
In What Proportion Divided 94 

(8) 



4 The Real Lincoln. 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Attitude of England 103 

CHAPTER XV. 
Despotism Threatened 108 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Outline of the Despoti-sm 117 

CHAPTER XVII. 
General Opposition and Resistance to Coercion and to Eman- 
cipation 123 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Despotism in Maryland 134 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Despotism in Kentucky 144 

CHAPTER XX. 

Despotism in Indiana " 147 

CHAPTER XXI. 
Attitude of Ohio and Illinois 155 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Attitude of Philadelphia and New York 161 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
Attitude of Iowa and Other States 169 

CHAPTER XXIV. 
Purpose of Emancipation 176 

CHAPTER XXV. 
Opposition to Lincoln's Re-Election 185 

CHAPTER XXVI. 
How Lincoln Got Himself Re-Elected 189 

CHAPTER XXVII. 
Apotheosis of Lincoln 202 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 
What This Book Would Teach 213 

APPENDIX. 



INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITORS. 



The manuscript of this vohime was completed by Dr. 
Minor only a few days before his death. After the issue 
of the first edition, in 1901, he began this, thinking that a 
second edition would be needed. When the call for a 
second edition came, he had gathered and worked in 
much new matter, so that it has become a book now in- 
stead of a pamphlet. 

To the undersigned, his brother and sister, was com- 
mitted the charge of editing it — a labor of love in a double 
sense, for it is hard to say which they love most, the writer 
or the cause of political and historic truth so ably cham- 
pioned by him. It is all his work — his last work — to 
which might be appended the words of the Roman gladi- 
ator: moriturus vos saluto. 

It is unnecessary for the editors to say anything as to 
the purpose for which this book was written; for this is 
fully stated in the preface by the author, and the conclud- 
ing words of the last chapter show how the facts set forth, 
and so fully proved in this book, tend to allay rather than 
to excite sectional feeling between North and South. If 
in doing this it has been necessary for the writer to set forth 
facts which compel Lincoln's admirers to esteem him less, 
let not the reader blame the author for lack of charity; 
but rather consider that truth is a very precious thing, 
and that only truth could come from such an array of un- 
willing witnesses as has been marshalled here. 

No man ever lived more willing than the author to give 
due homage to worth, and more unwilling to take from a 

(5) 



6 The Real Lincoln. 

hero any portion of his meed of praise; but to restore in 
some measure that good-will between the sections which 
he had known when a boy, was an object with him beyond 
all price, and well worth his utmost efforts in the cause of 
truth, even though it should compel the world to place one 
of its heroes on a lower pedestal. 

True here, as of all truth, are the words of the Master, 
"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you 
free," from prejudice, passion, and all micharitableness. 

Berkeley Minor, 
Mary Willis Minor. 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR. 



Charles Landon Carter Minor was the eldest son of Lucius H. Minor 
of "Edgewood," Hanover county, Virginia. His mother was Catharine 
Frances Berkeley. He was born December 3d, 1835. He received 
the degree of Master of Arts at the University of Virginia in 1857. 

The beginning of the War between the States found him teaching 
at Bloomfield, LeRoy Broun's School, in Albemarle county, Vir- 
ginia. He volunteered very shortly after the secession of his native 
State, and for some time served as a private in the Second Virginia 
Cavalry, Munford's regiment, seeing much active service about Ma- 
nassas and in "Stonewall" Jackson's Valley Campaign; but later by 
competitive examination received a captain's commission in the 
Ordnance Department, and served on General Sam. Jones' staff in 
Southwest Virginia, and was his chief of ordnance when in command 
at Charleston, South Carolina. Captain Minor's last assignment was 
with General Gorgas as executive officer at the Richmond Arsenal, 
where he was when the war ended. 

After the war he conducted a school in Lynchburg, Virginia, for 
some years. Then he held a chair in the University of the South 
at Sewanee, Teiinessee, till he was called to be the first president 
of the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College, now the Virginia 
Polytechnic Institute, at Blacksburg, Virginia, where he was for eight 
years. He subsequently conducted the Shenandoah Valley Academy 
at Winchester, Virginia, for a good many years, and finally, while 
assistant principal of the Episcopal High School, at Alexandria, 
Virginia, an attack of grip so injured his health, that he was able 
thereafter only to take private pupils in Baltimore. 

During these later years he gave much time to historical and politi- 
cal studies, particularly of the times of the Civil War, and wrote a 
good deal on these subjects in Baltimore and Richmond papers. 

In 1874 Dr. Minor received the degree of LL.D. from William 
and Mary College. 

In 1860 he married Miss Fanny Annsley Cazenove, of Alexandria, 
Virginia. Two children survive him, Fanny, wife of Rev. James 
F. Plummer of Clarksburg, West Virginia, and Anne, wife of Rev 
A. G. Grinnan of Weston, West Virginia. 

(7) 



8 The Real Lincoln. 

Dr. Minor died suddenly, July 13, 1903, at "Beaulieu" in Albemarle 
county, Virginia, the residence of his brother-in-law, R. M. Fon- 
taine, Esq. 

Dr. Minor was a devout Christian and loyal churchman; for many 
years of his life a vestryman, sometimes a delegate in the Councils 
of the diocese; always striving to do his duty in that state of life 
unto which it pleased God to call him. The writer knows none who 
have more fully illustrated the character of the Christian gentleman 
as drawn by Thackeray in the "End of the Play": 

" Come wealth or want, come good or ill. 

Let young and old accept their part. 
And bow before this awful will. 

And bear it with an honest heart. 
Who misses or who wins the prize, — 

Go, lose or conquer as you can; 
But if you fail or if you rise, 

Be each, pray God, a gentleman."' 



PREFACE. 

Since the publication of a pamphlet called The Real 
Lincoln, the author has found in the Official Records of the 
Union Army, published by the United States War Depart- 
ment, and in other works by people of Northern sympathies, 
much that is interesting and curious to corroborate the 
points made in the pamphlet, and to establish other points 
of no less value for the vindication of the cause of the 
South, and for the establishment of the conclusion arrived 
at on the 57th page of the pamphlet that " the North and 
West were never enemies of the South" — a conclusion 
as little expected and as surprising to the author as it can 
be to any one else. The final result of these studies is 
herewith given in a volume with the same title as the pam- 
phlet, meeting the demand for a second edition of that 
work, but largely increased by part of the accumulations 
above described. 

Some explanation is needed of the nature and aim of 
the work, and it is submitted, as follows: 

A mistaken es'timate of Abraham Lincoln has been 
spread abroad very widely, and even in the South an edi- 
torial in a leading religious paper lately said as follows: 
"Our country has more than once been singularly 
fortunate in the moral character and the admirable per- 
sonality of its popular heroes. Washington, Lincoln and 
Lee have been the type of character that it was safe to 
hold up to the admiration of their own age and the imita- 
tion of succeeding generations." Li the North the pjean 
of praise that began with his death has grown to such ex- 
travagance that he has been called by one eminent popular 

(9) 



10 The Real Lincoln. 

speaker "a servant and follower of Jesus Christ/' and by 
another "first of all that have walked the earth after the 
Nazarene," and on his late birthday a eulogist asked us 
to give up aspirations for a heaven where Lincoln's pres- 
ence is not assured. A very distinguished preacher, on 
the Easter succeeding the Good Friday on which Lincoln 
was assassinated, called him "a Christian man, a servant 
and follower of Jesus Christ — . . . one whom we 
have revered as a father, and loved more than we can love 
any human friend," set forth a comparison between his 
death and that of the Saviour of Mankind, likening Wilkes 
Booth to Pilate, and ended with, " Shall we not say of the 
day, it is fit?" It was on Good Friday that Lincoln was 
shot, and in a theatre. 

To try to reawaken or to foster ill-will between the North 
and the South would be a useless, mischievous and most cen- 
surable task, and it will be seen at pages 213-214 of this 
book that it has an exactly opposite purpose, but it is a 
duty to correct such misrepresentations, for the reason 
that they make claims for Lincoln entirely inconsistent 
with the concessions of grave defects in him that are made 
by the closest associates of his private Hfe; by the most 
respectable and most eulogistic biographers and historians 
of his own day and of this day, at home and abroad, who 
have described his character and career, and equally incon- 
sistent with the estimates of him by the greatest and 
closest associates of his public life, and by a very large 
part of the great Northern and Western Republican leaders 
of his own day. The fact that the evidence submitted 
comes from such witnesses, and such witnesses only, is 
the chief claim that this book has upon the interest and 



The Real Lincoln. 11 

confidence of its readers, and attention is called to the 
extraordinary cogency of such evidence, and to the fact 
that not a word of testimony is offered out of the mass 
that might be offered from the eminent writers, speakers, 
statesmen, and soldiers who took the Southern side. 

In the Appendix will be found, in alphabetical order, 
the names of all the witnesses whose evidence is submitted. 
Reference is invited to that Appendix, as each witness is 
reached by the reader, and especially in every case where 
the reader finds it hard to believe the evidence, and it 
will be found that each is included in one of the above 
indicated classes. Only old and exceptionally well-in- 
formed men of this day are likely to know the ample 
authority with which these witnesses speak. See Lincoln 
himself; see Generals U. S. Grant and Wm. T. Sherman; 
see Lincoln's greatest Cabinet Ministers, Seward, Chase, 
and Stanton; see, among the foremost leaders of thought 
and action of their day, John Sherman, Ben Wade, and 
Thaddeus Stevens; see representatives of the highest 
intellectual and moral standards, Richard Dana, Edward 
Everett, Charles Francis Adams, and Robert Winthrop; 
see the most ardent and prominent Abolitionists, Senator 
Sumner and Wendell Phillips; see Horace Greeley, whose 
lofty integrity extorted admiration from thousands on 
whose nearest and dearest interests his Tribune newspaper 
waged a war as deadly as it was honest ; see the correspondent 
of the London Times, Russell ; see the most up-to-date his- 
torians of our own day, Lla Tarbell, A. K. McClure, 
Schouler, Ropes, and Rhodes; and see the most intimate 
associates of Lincoln's lifetime, Lamon and Herndon, who 
give such reasons for telling not the good only, but all 



12 The Real Lincoln. 

they know about their great friend, as win commendation 
from the latest biographers of all, Morse and Hapgood, 
whose books have received only praise from the American 
reading public. 

The following objection has been made to the first edi- 
tion of this work: ''What has the author himself to say 
about Lincoln? Nothing is found from the author him- 
self; only what other people have said or written." It 
was the author's purpose to submit the testimony of cer- 
tain classes above described, and to leave the reader to 
draw his own conclusions. 

Another objection has been offered, that this book gives 
only the bad side of Lincoln, and not the good. The 
author makes the acknowledgment that the largest measure 
of every excellence — intellectual, moral, and spiritual — 
has been claimed for Lincoln, and very generally conceded 
to him, and space need not be given to reciting those 
claims, because they are familiar to all who have given 
the least attention to Lincoln's place in the world's esteem, 
and because to give them any adequate statement would 
require a space like the ten very large volumes in which 
Nicolay and Hay have done that work so ably and with 
such jealous protection of their hero's good name. Not 
only does the author concede that these comprehensive 
claims have been made and have been generally admitted, 
but the Appendix shows that even the strongest of these 
claims have been made, in whole or in part, by most of 
the very witnesses whose testimony is quoted in this book. 
To reconcile the damaging concessions with the contradict- 
ory claims by the same witnesses is not the duty of the 
author of this book. An examination of the chapter headed 



The Real Lincoln. 13 

Apotheosis of Lincoln will, however, discover some expla- 
nation of these contradictions. It was a saying of Lord 
Somers that often the most material part of testimony is 
that on which the witness values himself the least. 

A third objection has been made, that this book gives 
the testimony of Lincoln's enemies. Who were Lincoln's 
friends, if they are not included among these witnesses, 
and which of these witnesses was not on his side in the 
great contest? 



The Real Lincoln. 



CHAPTEK 1. 
Was Lincoln Heroic ? 

BEFORE considering the testimony as to Lincoln's moral 
and religious character that is furnished by the two 
intimate friends of his whole lifetime, Ward H. Lamon and 
William H. Herndon, readers should examine carefully 
what is told of them in the Appendix mider their names, 
in order to see the extraordinary conclusiveness of their 
testimony. Besides this, the reader will find proof there 
that when no one of the many distinguished eulogists of 
Lincoln had ventured to try to controvert or even to con- 
tradict what Lamon and Herndon call their ''revelations" 
and "ghastly exposures" about Lincoln, although Lamon's 
book was published as long ago as 1872 and Herndon's 
as long ago as 1888, defenders of Lincoln were reduced to 
the strait of publishing as late as the years 1892 and 1895 
two books with titles similar to the genuine books of 
Lamon and Herndon, which new books make no refer- 
ence to the existence of the earlier books, contain the 
frank avowals of Lamon and Herndon that they mean 
to tell all the gravest faults of their hero along with his 
virtues and omit the "revelations" and "ghastly expo- 
sures." 

Among the heroic traits claimed for Lincoln is personal 
courage. This claim is hard to reconcile with his care- 

(15) 



16 The Real Lincoln. 

fully concealed midnight ride into Washington a day or 
two before his inauguration. A. K. McClure^ has been 
at no small pains to apologize for it, describes the mid- 
night journey, and says: "His answer to solicitations at 
a dinner given him by Governor Curtin in Harrisburg — 
to go as he did go to Washington — was substantially, and 
I think exactly, in these words: 'I cannot consent. 
What would the nation think of its President stealing 
into the Capital like a thief in the night.' " McClure 
calls these words "painfully pathetic." Lamon describes 
{Recollections of Lincoln, &c., p. 39, et seq.) a conference 
with his friends in Harrisburg in the evening of the same 
day, in which conference Lincoln decided to make the 
midnight journey, though warned by Colonel Sumner 
that it "would be a damned piece of cowardice." Lamon 
says (Life of Lincoln, p. 526, et seq.) : " Mr. Lincoln soon 
learned to regret the midnight ride. His friends re- 
proached him, his enemies taunted him. He was con- 
vinced that he had committed a grave mistake in yielchng 
to the solicitations of a professional spy and of friends too 
easily alarmed. He saw that he had fled from a danger 
purely imaginary, and felt the shame and mortification 
natural to a brave man under such circumstances. . . ." 
The Hon. Henry L. Dawes says (Tributes from his Asso- 
ciates, p. 4): "He never altogether lost to me the look 
with which he met the curious and, for the moment, not 
very kind gaze of the House of Representatives on that 
first morning after what they deemed a pusillanimous 
creep into Washington." Lamon was (see Appendix, at 
his name) then and thereafter to the end of his life the 

^Lincoln and Men of the War Time, p. 46, et seq., and Our Presidents and Hon.) 
We Make Them, p. 180 to 181, et seq. 



The Real Lincoln. 17 

intimate friend of Lincoln, had come with him from 
Springfield, and was chosen^ as the one heavily-armed 
companion of the midnight journey; but {Life of Lincoln, 
pp. 512-513) he expressly declares that "it is perfectly 
manifest that there was no conspiracy — no conspiracy 
of a hundred, of fifty, of twenty, of three; no definite pur- 
pose in the heart of even one man to murder Mr. Lincoln 
at Baltimore." 

Dorothy Lamon's book. Recollections of Abraham Lincoln 
by Ward H. Lamon, though its object seems to be (see Ap- 
pendix at name of Lamon) to conceal some of Lincoln's 
most evil traits, quotes him as saying to Lamon, " You also 
know that the way we skulked into this city in the first 
place has been a source of shame and regret to me, for it 
did look so cowardly." Horace Greeley {American Conflict, 
Vol. L, p. 421) likened Lincoln to "a hunted fugitive." 
Rhodes says of the midnight journey {History of the 
United States, Vol. IIL, p. 304): "This drew ridicule 
from his enemies and expressions of regret from many of 
his well wishers." Nicolay and Hay devote a chapter 
(XX. of Vol. in.) to it, but do not claim that there was 
any danger. Morse, as jealous to defend Lincoln as any 
other, concedes that there was no danger at all, and that 
" Lamon's account of it ... . is doubtless the most 
trustworthy," and records Lincoln's regret and shame for 
what he had done.^ 

Ida Tarbell describes {McClure's Magazine for January 
and February, 1900) Lincoln's progress through the city 
to his inaugural ceremony — the strong military force, 
including artillery, assembled to protect him — "platoons 

^A. K. McClure's Lincoln and Men of the War Time, p. 46, et seq. 

^See Appendix at Morse's name, and his Life of Lincoln, p. 197, et seq. 



18 The Real Lincoln. 

of soldiers" at the street corners, "groups of riflemen on 
the housetops," and shows how he passed through a board 
tunnel into the Capitol building, "with fifty or sixty sol- 
diers under the platform," and that " two batteries of artil- 
lery were in adjacent streets and a ring of volunteers 
surrounded the waiting crowd." Dr. E. Benjamin An- 
drews (History of the United States, Vol. III., p. 324) gives 
nearly the same account, but does not mention the tunnel. 

Schouler says (History of the United States, Vol. VI., p. 
6, et seq.): "The carriage in which Lincoln and Bu- 
chanan came and returned over Pennsylvania avenue had 
been closely guarded in front and rear by a military escort 
of regulars and the District militia. Cavalry detachments 
protected the crossings at Ihe great squares; skilled rifle- 
men were posted on the roofs of convenient houses with 
orders to watch windows opposite from which a shot 
might be fired. On Capitol Hill the private entrance and 
exit of the presidential party was through a covered 
passageway on the north side, lined by police, with trusted 
troops near by, .... with a battery of light artil- 
lery on the brow of the hill." . . . The story of 
the midnight journey and of the inauguration make quite 
comprehensible what Vice-President Hamlin (Hamlin's 
Life of Hamlin, p. 389) and the above quoted historians 
record that Lincoln was bitterly ashamed ever afterward 
of what he had done on these two occasions. 

When Baltimore had stopped the Massachusetts sol- 
diers, and Maryland had stopped all soldiers going to 
Washington, Ida Tarbell, Nicolay and Hay, Schouler and 
Rhodes, give singular accounts of Lincoln's state of appre- 
hension. Rhodes and Tarbell quote his words: "Why 



The Real Lincoln. 19 

don't they come? Why don't they come? I begin to 
beHeve there is no North. The Seventh Regiment is a 
myth. "^ Schouler quotes almost the same words (History 
of the United States, Voh VI., p. 45). Rhodes says he 
was "nervously apprehensive," and sympathetic Ida Tar- 
bell says the words were uttered "in an anguished tone." 
Curtis's Life of Buchanan gives a letter of Edwin M. Stanton 
to the Ex-President describing this panic in the city, 
which he says (Vol. II., p. 547) "was increased bj^ the 
reports of the trepidation of Lincoln." .... 

Russell wrote (My Diary, North and South, p. 43) in 
Washington July 22nd, the day after the first Union defeat 
at Bull Run, ''General Scott is quite overcome: . . . . 
General McDowell is not yet arrived; the Secretary of 
War knows not what to do; Mr. Lincoln is equally help- 
less"; and again he wrote later (p. 185) that Lincoln, 
"stunned at the tremendous calamity, sat listening in 
fear and trembling for the sound of the enemy's cannon." 

In the second great panic in Washington, when the 
Union Army under General Pope was utterly routed and 
close on Washington in retreat, Gorham and Rhodes de- 
scribe Lincoln in such distress and perplexity as to say 
to Chase and Stanton, of his Cabinet, that "he would 
gladly resign his place." General B. F. Butler censures 
the account of Lincoln's condition given by Nicolay and 
Hay, as follows: "A careful reading of that description 
would lead one to infer that Lincoln was in a state of ab- 
ject fear."^ 

Russell says (My Diary, etc., p. 15) that in March, 1861, 

^Rhodes' History of the United States, Vol. III., p. 368. and Tarbell in McClure's 
Magazine for February, 1899, p. 325. 

^See Gorham's Life of Stanton, Vol. II., p. 44, et seq.; Rhodes' History of tha 
United States, Vol. IV., p. 137, et seq., and p. 497; and Butler's Book, p. 219. 



20 The Real Lincoln. 

in Washington, there was "Uttle sympathy with, and no 
respect for, the newly-installed government," and that 
"the cold shoulder is given to Mr. Lincoln," and that 
(p. 36) "personal ridicule and contempt for Mr. Lincoln 
prevail in Washington." 

The Life of Charles Francis Adams describes (p. 120, 
et seq.) Adani's visit to the new President to get his in- 
structions as Minister to England. He got none whatever, 
was "half amused, half mortified, altogether shocked," 
and got an impression of "dismay" at Lincoln's behavior 
and his unconsciousness of "the gravity of the crisis," 
or his insensibility to it, and perceived that Lincoln was 
only "intent on the distribution of offices." The bio- 
grapher, his son, says that this impression had not faded 
from the mind of Mr. Adams twelve years later, when he 
made a Memorial Address on the death of Seward, as 
indeed plainly appears in that address, which describes 
Lincoln (p. 48, et seq.) as displaying when he entered on 
his duties as President, "moral, intellectual, and executive 
incompetency." The biographer goes on (p. 181, et seq.): 
"Seen in the light of subsequent events, it is assumed 
that Lincoln in 1865 was also the Lincoln of 1861. His- 
torically speaking, there can be no greater error. The 
President, who has since become a species of legend, was 
in March, 1861, an absolutely unknown, and by no means 
promising, pohtical quantity"; .... and again, 
" none the less the fact remains that when he first entered 
upon his high functions, President Lincoln filled with 

dismay those brought in contact with him 

The evidence is sufficient and conclusive that, in this 
respect, he impressed others as he impressed Mr. Adams 
in this one characteristic interview." "Disgust" is the 



The Real Lincoln. 21 

word used by Schouler (History of the United States, Vol. 
v., p. 497) to indicate the impression made by Lincoln 
on "the members of the Peace Conference" when they 
paid their respects to the President in February, 1861. 
Rhodes refers to them scornfully as "polished patricians," 
but it would be hard to name more competent judges in 
the matter than they were, as, for example, Ex-President 
Tyler. 

A. K. McClure says (Lincoln and Men of the War Time, 
p. 123, ei seq.): "Lincoln's desire for a renomination 
was the one thing ever apparent in his mind during the 
third year of his Administration," and he draws a pitiful 
picture (pp. 113 to 115) of Lincoln as he saw him in fits of 
abject depression tluring a considerable time after his 
second nomination, when he and all the leaders of the 
Republican party thought his defeat inevitable. McClure 
describing in his later book. Our Presidents and How We 
Make Them, p. 184, an interview with Lincoln, says, 

"A more anxious candidate I have never known 

I could hardly treat with respect his anxiety about his 
renomination"; and gives other details betraying contempt 
for Lincoln's behavior. Fry, too, tells {Reminiscences of 
Lincoln, &c., p. 590) "of a craving for a second term of 
the presidency," which he could not overcome, and con- 
fessed he could not, and quotes Lincoln's words, "No 
man knows what that gnawing is till he has had it." 

Rhodes" records contempt for Lincoln expressed by his 
Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, afterwards 
made by Lincoln Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and 
says that Chase "was by no means alone in his judgment," 



'^Histm-y of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 205 to 210, et seq., and note on p. 210. 



22 The Real Lincoln. 

and that "in many Senators and Representatives existed 
a distrust of his abihty and force of character"; and he 
further quotes so high an autliority as Richard H. Dana, 
who said in a letter to Thornton Lothrop, February 23, 
1863, when on a visit to Washington, "The lack of respect 
for the President in all parties is unconcealed"; and wrote 
in March, 1863, to Charles Francis Adams, Minister to 
England, that Lincoln " has no admirers, .... and 
does not act, talk, or feel like the ruler of a great empire 

in a great crisis If a Republican convention 

was to be held to-morrow he would not get the vote of 

a State He is an unspeakable calamity to 

us where he is." 

No heroic trait has oftener been claimed for Lincoln than 
tenderness of heart. General Donn Piatt {Reminiscences 
of Lincoln, &c., p. 486 to 489) denies the claim made for 
Lincoln that he was "of a kind or forgiving nature," or 
of any gentle impulses, and shows (p. 493) his extraordi- 
nar}' insensibility to the ills of his fellow-citizens and 
soldiers when the miseries of the war were at their worst. 
He says (p. 486), "There is a popular belief that Abraham 
Lincoln was of so kind and forgiving a nature that his 
gentler impulses interfered with his duty. . . . The 
belief is erroneous. ... I doubt whether Mr. Lin- 
coln had at all a kind, forgiving nature .... (p. 
487). I heard Secretary Seward say in this connection, 
that Presitlent Lincoln 'had a cunning that was genius.' 
As for his steady refusal to sanction the death penalty 
in cases of desertion, there was far more policy in the 

course than fine feeling As Secretary Chase 

said at the time, 'Such kindness to the criminal is cruelty 
to the army, for it encourages the cowardly to leave the 



The Real Lincoln. 23 

brave and patriotic unsupported.' " General Piatt says, 
referring to the leading members of the Cabinet, Seward, 
Chase, and Stanton, "While all these were eaten into and 
weakened by anxiety, Lincoln ate and slept and jested 
. . . . (p. 493, et seq.). He faced and lived through 
the awful responsibility of the situation w^ith the high 
courage that came of indifference. At the darkest period, 
for us, of the war, when the enemy's cannon were throb- 
bing in its roar along the walls of our Capitol, I heard 
him say to General Schenck, 'I enjoy my rations and 
sleep the sleep of the innocent.' " (P. 484.) 

A delicate refinement of feeling is one of the traits 
often claimed for Lincoln. What he was capable of in 
his dealings with women is conclusively illustrated by 
his letter to Mrs. Browning about Miss Owens. Lamon 
copies it, and so do Herndon and Hapgood; Nicolay and 
Hay concede its authenticity in trying to make light of 
it; Hapgood copies, besides, another letter, in which Lin- 
coln asks Miss Owens to marry him. Morse calls the letter 
to Mrs. Browning "one of the most unfortunate epistles 
ever penned," and elsewhere calls it " that most abominable 
epistle."^ 

Acknowledging that he had lately asked Miss Owens 
to marry him and had been refused by her, Lincoln writes 
to Mrs. Browning that one of his reasons for asking her to 
marry him was the conviction that no other man would ever 
do so. Lamon speaks (page 181) of " its coarse exaggera- 
tion in describing a person whom the writer was willing 
to marry, its imputation of toothless and weather-beaten 
old age to a woman young and handsome." 



'Lamon's Life of Lincoln, p. 181, et se<i., and Ilerndon's Abraham Lincoln, 
Vol. I., p. 55, and Hapgood's Lincoln, pj). G4 to 71, and Nicolay and Hay's Abra- 
ham Lincoln, Vol. I., p. 192. 



24 The Real Lincoln. 

Evidence of the marriage of Lincoln's parents has been 
found since Lamon's Lincoln was pubhshed in 1872, 
and Uke evidence of his mother's legitimate birth 
since Hapgood's Lincoln was published in 1900. But 
Lincoln himself was capable of bringing shame upon 
the birth of his mother to escape the reproach of being of 
the unmixed "poor white" blood of the Hanks family. 
Herndon's Lincoln (Vol. I., p. 3) says: " It was about 1850, 
when he and I were driving in his one-horse buggy to the 
court in Minard county, Illinois. ... He said of his 
mother .... that she was the illegitimate daughter 
of Lucy Hanks and of a well-bred Virginia farmer or planter, 
and he argued that from this last source came his power 
of analysis, his mental activity, his ambition, and all the 
qualities that distinguished him from the other members 
of the Hanks family, .... and he believed that 
his better nature and finer qualities came from this broad- 
minded, unknown Virginian." 



CHAPTER II. 

Was Lincoln a Christian? 

ALMOST all the Christians of Springfield, his home, 
opposed him for President. He was an infidel, and 
when he went to church, he went to mock and came 
away to mimic. He wrote and talked against religion in 
the most shocking words. He never denied the charge, 
publicly urged, that he was an infidel. His wife and 
closest friends attest all this. He became reticent about 
his religious views when he entered political life, and there- 
after indulged freely in pious phrases in his published 
documents and passionate expressions of piety began to 
abound in his speeches; but he never denied or flinched 
from his religious opinions and never changed them. 

As to Lincoln's attitude towards religion, Dr. Holland, 
in his Abraham Lincoln, says (p. 286) that twenty out 
of the twenty-three ministers of the different denomina- 
tions of Christians, and a very large majority of the promi- 
nent members of the churches in his home, Springfield, 
Illinois, opposed him for President. He says (page 241) : 
.... "Men who knew him throughout all his profes- 
sional and political life" have said "that, so far from being 
a religious man, or a Christian, the less said about that 
the better." He says of Lincoln's first recorded religious 
utterance, used in closing his farewell address to Spring- 
field, that it "was regarded by many as an evidence both 
of his weakness and of his hypocrisy, .... and was 
tossed about as a joke — 'old Abe's last.' " 

Hapgood's Lincoln (page 291, et seq.) records that the 
pious words with which the Emancipation Proclamation 

(25) 



26 The Real Lincoln. 

closes were added at the suggestion of Secretary Chase, 
and so does Usher (Reminiscences of Lincoln, &c., p. 91), 
and so does Rhodes; and Rhodes shows him "an infidel, 
if not an atheist," and adds, "When Lincoln entered poli- 
tical life he became reticent upon his religious opinions." 
{History of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 213, et seq.). Of 
his words that savor of religion, Lamon says (Life of 
Lincoln, page 503) : " If he did not believe in it, the masses 
of 'the plain people' did, and no one was ever more anxious 
to do what was of good report among men." Lamon 
further says (page 497) that after Mr. Lincoln "appre- 
ciated .... the violence and extent of the religious 
prejudices which freedom of discussion from his stand- 
point would be sure to rouse against him," and "the 
immense and augmenting power of the chm'ches," .... 
(page 502), "he indulged freely in indefinite expressions 
about 'Divine Providence,' 'the justice of God,' the 'favor 
of the Most High,' in his published documents, but he 
nowhere ever professed the slightest faith in Jesus as the Son 
of God and the Saviour of men." (Page 501, et seq.) 
" He never told any one that he accepted Jesus as the Christ, 
or performed one of the acts which necessarily followed 
upon such a conviction." .... " When he went to church 
at all, he went to mock, and came away to mimic." (Page 
487.) Leland says {Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II., p. 55, 
et seq.): . . . "It is certain that after the unpopularity of 
free-thinkers had forced itself upon his mind, the most fer- 
vidly passionate expressions of piety began to abound in his 
speeches." Lamon tells in detail {Life of Lincoln, p. 157, 
et seq.) of the writing and the burning of a "httle book," 
written by Lincoln with the purpose to tlisprove the truth 
of the Bible and the divinity of Christ, ami tells how it 



The Real Lincoln. 27 

was burned without his consent by his friend Hill, lest it 
should ruin his political career before a Christian people. 
He says that Hill's son called the book "infamous," and 
that " the book was burnt, but he never denied or regretted 
its composition; on the contrary, he made it the subject 
of free and frequent conversations with his friends at 
Springfield, and stated with much particularity and pre- 
cision the origin, arguments, and object of the work." 
Rhodes {History of the United States, Yol. IX., p. 213) tells 
the same story, with confirmation in another place (^'ol. 
ni., p. 368, in note). 

Herndon describes the "essay" or "book" as "an argu- 
ment against Christianity, striving to prove that the 
Bible was not inspired, and therefore not God's revelation, 
and that Jesus Christ was not the Son of God." Herndon 
says that Lincoln intended to have the "essay" published, 
and further quotes one of Lincoln's associates of that day, 
who says that Lincoln "would come into the clerk's office 
where I and some young men were writing, .... and 
would bring a Bible with him; would read a chapter and 
argue against it."^ 

A letter of Herndon (Lamon's Lincoln, p. 492, et seq.) 
says of Lincoln's contest with the Rev. Peter Cartwright 
for Congress in 1848 (page 404) : " In that contest he was 
accused of being an infidel, if not an atheist; he never 
denied the charge; would not; 'would die first," because 
he knew it could be and would be proved." And Lamon 
further says (page 499) : " The following extract from a 
letter from Mr. Herndon was extensively jDublished 
throughout the United State about the time of its date, 

'Herndon's Lincoln, Vol. III., p. 39, et seq., and 439, et seq., and Lamon's 
Lincoln, p. 492. 



28 The Real Lincoln. 

February 18, 1870, and met with no contradiction from 
any responsible source: 'When Lincohi was a candidate 
for our Legislature, he was accused of being an infidel; 
of having said that Jesus Christ was an illegitimate child. 
He never denied the opinions or flinched from his reli- 
gious views.' " 

On pages 487 to 514 Lamon's Lincoln copies numerous 
letter from Lincoln's intimate associates, one from David 
Davis,^ a Justice of the Supreme Court, and one from Lin- 
coln's wife, that fully confirm the above as to his attitude 
of hostility to religion. Lamon copies (Life of Lincoln, 
p. 495) another letter of Herndon, as follows: '' When Mr. 
Lincoln left this city" — Springfield, Illinois — "for Wash- 
ington, I know that he had undergone no change in his 
religious opinions or views." And Lamon gives (page 
480) a letter of Nicolay, his senior private secretary 
throughout his Administration, which states that he per- 
ceived no change in Lincoln's attitude toward religion 
after his entrance on the presidency. The Cosmopolitan, 
of March, 1901, says that Nicolay " probably was closer 
to the martyred President than any other man; .... 
that he knew Lincoln as President and as man more inti- 
mately than any other man." .... 

^The Appendix shows that he was an intimate friend of Lincoln. 



CHAPTER III. 
Lincoln's Jokes and Stories. 

RHODES is everywhere jealous to defend Lincoln, 
but he thinks fit to record the following {History of 
the United States, Vol. IV., p. 471, note and p. 518), 
prefacing it with the statement that the World was then 
the organ of the best element of the Democratic party; 
that the New York World, of June 19, 1864, called Lincoln 
"an ignorant, boorish, third-rate, backwoods lawyer," 
and reported that the spokesman of a delegation sent to 
carry the resolutions of a great religious organization to 
the President publicly denounced him as "disgracefully un- 
fit for the high office " ; and that a Republican Senator from 
New York was reported to have left the President's pres- 
ence because his self-respect would not permit him to stay 
and listen to the language he employed. Rhodes further 
sets down "a tradition" that Andrew, the great War 
Governor of Massachusetts, when pressing a matter he 
had at heart, went away in disgust at being put off by the 
President with "a smutty story." 

Dr. Holland's Abraham Lincoln says of the indecency 
of his jokes and stories: "It is useless for Mr. Lincoln's 
biographers to ignore this habit; the whole West, if not 
the whole country (he is writing in 1866), is full of these 
stories, and there is no doubt at all that he indulged in 
them with the same freedom that he did in those of a less 
objectionable character." Again he says (page 251): 
.... "Men who knew him thoughout all his profes- 

(29) 



30 The Real Lincoln. 

sional and political life .... have said that he was the 
foulest in his jests and stories of any man in the country." 

This is a comprehensive indictment from one of Lin- 
coln's most loving worshippers, as is shown at Holland's 
name in the Appendix, and is fully sustained by testi- 
mony submitted below from Morse, Hapgood, Piatt, 
Rhodes, and — most shocking testimony of all — from 
Lamon and Herndon. 

Norman Hapgood, a very late biographer of Lincoln 
(of the year 1900) and Morse, the next latest (of the year 
1892), confirm the "revelations" and the " ghastly ex- 
posures" about Lincoln that are described below as re- 
corded by Lamon and by Herndon. Morse says that a 
necessity and duty rested on those biographers to record 
these truths, as they both claim was their duty, and Hap- 
good says, "Herndon has told the President's early life 
with refreshing honesty and with more information than 
any one else."^ 

General Don Piatt records (Memories of the Men Who 
Saved the Union, p. 35) an occasion when he heard Lin- 
coln tell stories "no one of which will bear printing." 
] jamon adds to all this his testimony (Abraham Lincoln, pp. 
480 and 430) that this habit of Lincoln's "was restrained 
by no presence and no occasion," and General Piatt refers 
to him as "the man who could open a Cabinet meeting 
called to discuss the Emancipation Proclamation by read- 
ing aloud Artemus Ward," and refers to Gettysburg as 
"the field that he shamed with a ribald song," making 
reference to a song that Lincoln asketl for and got sung 
on the Gettysburg battlefield the day he made his cele- 

'Hapgood's Abraham Lincoln, Preface, p. 8; Morse's Lincoln, Vol. I., p. 13 
and p. 192, et seq. 



The Real Lincoln. 31 

brated address there. This behavior has been much 
discussed by his eulogists, and defended as a rehef neces- 
sary for a nature so sensitive and high- wrought."^ "Was 
ever so subhme a thing ushered in by the ridiculous?" 
'^ say Rhodes (History of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 167). 
The mood in which Lincoln issued the Proclamation is 
hereinafter described as set forth by his eulogists. 

Herndon gives (Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I., p. 55, et seq.) 
a copy of a satire written by Lincoln, The first Chronicle 
of Reuben, and an account of the very slight provocation 
under which Lincoln wrote it, and in two foot notes de- 
scribes the exceedingly base and indecent device by which 
Lincoln brought about the events which gave opportimity 
for this satire; and Herndon copies some verses written 
and circulated by Lincoln which he considers even more 
vile than the '^ Chronicle.'^ Of these verses Lamon says, 
"It is impossible to transcribe them." (Life of Lincoln, 
pages 63 and 64.) Decency does not permit the publi- 
cation of the Chronicle or the verses here. 

In neither of A. K. McClure's books, Lincoln and Men 
of the War Time, published in 1892, or Our Presidents and 
How We Make Them, published in 1900, does he offer 
any contradiction of the "revelations" and "ghastly dis- 
closures" that Lamon and Herndon had published to the 
world so long before, but McClure does say in the earlier 
of the books, in the preface (p. 2), "The closest men to 
Lincoln, before and after his election to the presidency, 
were David Davis, Leonard Swett, Ward H. Lamon, and 
William H. Herndon." Letters of the first two named 
are among the letters referred to above, published by 
Lamon as evidence of Lincoln's attitude toward religion. 



^Reminiscences of Lincoln, etc., p. 481. et seq.. and p. 485, et seq. 



32 The Real Lincoln. 

If any would take refuge in the hope that the responsi- 
biUties of his high office raised Lincoln above these habits 
of indecency, they are met by authentic stories of his 
grossly unseemly behavior as President by the evidence 
of Lamon, the chosen associate of his life time, as given 
above, that his indulgence in gross jokes and stories was 
"restrained by no presence and no occasion." 



CHAPTER IV. 

Estimates of Lincoln. 

THE evidence tlnis far submitted concerns chiefly the 
personal character of Lincohi. Let us proceed to con- 
sider evidence to sliow that his conduct of pubUc 
affairs provoked the bitterest censure from a very great 
number of the most conspicuous of his colaborers in his 
achievements. 

A. K. McCku-e says {Lincohi and Men of the War Time, 
p. 51) of Lincoln, "If he could only have commanded the 
hearty cooperation of the leaders of his own party, his 
task would have been greatly lessened, but it is due to 
the truth of history to say that few, very few, of the 
Republicans of national fame had faith in Lincoln's ability 
for the trust assigned to him. I could name a dozen men, 
now^ idols of the nation, whose open distrust of Lincoln 
not only seriously embarrassed, but grievously pained 
and humiliated him." 

Ben Perley Poore shows {Reminiscences of Lincoln, &c., 
p. 34S) Henry Ward Beecher's censures of Lincoln, and 
so do Beecher's editorials in the Independent of 1862, of 
which Beecher says himself {Reminiscences of Lincoln, &c., 
p. 249) ..." they bore down on him very hard." 
Beecher's contemptuous censures are recorded by Rhodes, 
too {History of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 462); and 
he shows, besides, that Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, 
was among the great body of leading Republicans who, 
as will be shown, bitterly opposed Lincoln's renomination 

iMcClure's title page is dated 1892. 

(33) 

3 



34 The Real Lincoln. 

for President in 1S64. He says, too, of Wilson that his 
open assaults were amazing ; . . . that he was loud 
and bitter even in the President's house. 

Hapgood quotes (Abraham Lincoln, p. 164) Wendell 
Phillips about Lincoln: "Who is this huxter in politics? 
Who is this county court lawyer?" Morse, too, gives 
(Lincoln, Vol. I., p. 177) severe censures of Lincoln by 
Wendell Phillips. A. K. McClure (Lincoln and Men of 
the War Time, p. 117, and p. 259 and p. 54, et seq., and p. 
104) records bitter censure of him by Thaddeus Stevens, 
and shows the hostility to Lincoln of Sunnier, Trumbull, 
Ben Wade, and Chandler, and of his Vice-President, Ham- 
lin. Ida TarbelP calls Senator Sumner, Ben Wade, Henry 
Winter Davis, and Secretary Chase "malicious foes of 
Lincoln," and makes the remarkable and comprehensive 
concession that "about all the most prominent leaders 
. . . were actively opposed to Lincoln," and mentions 
Greeley as their chief. 

Fremont, Avho eight years before had received ever}^ 
Republican vote for President, charged Lincoln (Holland's 
Abraham Lincoln, p. 259, p. 469, and p. 471) with "inca- 
pacity and selfishness," with "disregard of personal 
rights," with "violation of personal liberty £ind liberty of 
the press," with "feebleness and want of principle"; and 
says: "The ordinary rights under the Constitution and 
laws of the country have been violated," and he further 
accuses Lincoln of "managing the war for personal ends." 

Dr. Holland shows (Abraham Lincoln, p. 469, et seq.) 
that Fremont, Wendell Phillips, Fred Douglass, and Greeley 
were leaders in a very nearly successful effort to defeat 

^McClure's Magazine, Vol. XIII., for July, 1899, p. 277, and for July, 1899, 
p. 218, et seq. 



The Real Lincoln. 35 

Lincoln's second nomination, and quotes as follows, action 
of the convention for that purpose held in Cleveland, 
May 21st, 1864, that "the public liberty was in danger"; 
that its object was to arouse the people, " and bring them 
to realize that, while we are saturating Southern soil with 
the best blood of the country in the name of liberty, we 
have really parted with it at home." 

Colonel Roosevelt, now President, in a speech at Grand 
Rapids, September 8th, 1900, said that in 1864 "on every 
hand Lincoln was denounced as a tyrant, a shedder of 
blood, a foe to liberty, a would-be dictator, a foimder of 
an em])ire — one orator saying, 'We also have our emperor, 
Lincoln, who can tell stale jokes while the land is ruiming 
red with the blood of brothers.' Even after Lincoln's 
death the assault was kept up." 

A. K. McClure (Lincoln and Men of the War Time, p. 
54), recording the hostile attitude toward Lincoln of the 
leading members of the Cabinet, makes a concession as 
comprehensive as Miss Tarbell's above: "Outside of the 
Cabinet the leaders W(3re equally discordant and quite as 
distrustful of tlie ability of Lincoln to fill his great office. 
Sumner, Trumbull, Chandler, Wade, Winter Davis, and 
the men to whom the nation then turned as the great 
representative men of the new political power, did not con- 
ceal their distrust of Lincoln, and he had little support 
from them at any time during his Administration" ; and 
McClure says again (p. 289, et seq.): "Greeley was a 
perpetual thorn in Lincoln's side .... and almost 
constantly criticised him boldly and often bitterly, . . . 
Greeley labored (p. 296) most faithfully to accomplish 
Lincoln's overthrow in his great struggle for re-election 



36 The Real Lincoln. 

in 1864." (Morse's Lincoln, Vol. II., p. 193). And 
Edward Everett Hale shows (James Russell Lowell and 
his Friends, p. 178, et seq.) that even the circumstances 
of Lincoln's death did not for a day abate Greeley's repro- 
bation. 

The careful reader will not fail to observe that Lincoln's 
first term of four years was at this time nearly over, so that 
all this bitter cen^xure from his associates was based on 
full knowledge of him. 

Very few other persons, if any, were so competent to esti- 
mate Lincoln's character as the three great leaders in his 
Cabinet, Seward, Stanton, and Chase, whose testimony we 
are now to examine; certainly no others had so good an 
opportunity to form an estimate. 

Secretary Seward's estimate of Lincoln is furnished by 
Ida Tarbell,^ as follows: "A less obvious perplexity than 
the office-seekers for Mr. Lincoln," when he entered on his 
duties, " though not a less real one, was the attitude of his 
Secretary of State — his (Seward's) cheerful assumption 
that he, not Mr. Lincoln, was the final authority of the 
Administration; ... he believed (p. 267), as many 
Republicans did, that Lincoln was unfit for the presidency, 
and that some one of his associates would be obliged to 
assume leadership, ... a sort of dictatorship; that 
if he, Seward, were absent eight days .... the Ad- 
ministration . . . would fall into consternation and 
despair." And Ida Tarbell quotes from Seward's letters 
to his wife at the time full proof of this. 

Seward has been mucli criticised and accused of rare 
presimiption for a letter that he wrote to the President, 
as Secretary of State, one month after his first inaugura- 

^McClure'a Magazine for March, 1899, p. 448, et seq. 



The Real Lincoln. 37 

tion, because the letter manifested a sense of superiority, 
and condescendingly offered his advice and aid and leader- 
ship. It is possil3le that Seward did feel some of the con- 
tempt for Lincoln that his brethren in the Cabinet, Chase 
and Stanton, never ceased to express freely for Lincoln 
throughout their long terms of office and very frequently 
showed to his face, as is shown below. Like them, Gov- 
ernor Seward was a man of the highest social standing, 
and of large experience in the highest public functions. 
The Lincoln whom so many now call a hero and a saint 
is exceedingly different from the Lincoln that the people 
who came in contact with him knew \ip to the time of 
his death, as is frankly avowed in this sketch by Adams 
and Piatt, and reluctantly conceded by C/"ittenden and L I 
Rhodes. What he was capable of in personal habits, 
maimers, and morals has been shown in the account of 
the "First Chronicle of Reuben," and his submission to 
humiliations such as are described below, and elsewhere 
in this book, from such men as Seward, Stanton, Chase, 
and General McClellan, is not at all unaccountable. 

Few were more ardent Abolitionists than Seward, as 
shown in Bancroft's late life of him, but he was no tyro in 
statecraft, and knew the exceedingly small number of voters 
in the United States who would hear patiently of abolition.* 
Tlie policy Seward so authoritatively suggested was — 
to^use the A^ery words of his letter^ — " to change the ques- 
tion before the public from one upon Slavery for a question 
upon Union or Disunion." Lincoln at once adopted that 

■•General Butler says in Butler's Book, p. 293, that as late as July, 18G1, no one 
in power was in favor of emancipation. 

^William Klery Curtis says in his True Lincoln, p. 204, .an ardent eulogy, pub- 
lished in 1903, that this letter of Seward's did not come to light till "nearly thirty 
years after." 



38 The Real Lincoln. 

policy, as shown in Chapter VIII. of this book, and by- 
means of it precipitated the war." Its astuteness in dis- 
tracting men's minds from the matter of slavery has been 
much commended, and Seward might well say, as he did," 
that Lincoln "had a cunning that was genius." 

How successfully the issue was changed is proved in a 
quotation from Lowell by Scudder (Atlantic Monthly for 
February, 1861), as follows: "Slavery is no longer the 
matter in debate, and we must beware of being led off 
on that issue. The matter now in hand is ... . 
the reaffirmation of National Unity." Yet Lowell was 
an ardent Abolitionist, and not an admirer of Lincoln, 
as will be shown at p. 208 of this book, until long after this; 
not, indeed, until Lincoln's Apotheosis began, the Com- 
memoration Ode to the contrary notwithstanding. 

A. K. McClure says (Lincoln and Men of the War Time, 
p. 151, ct seq.) : " Secretary Stanton had been in open and 
malignant opposition to the Administration only a few 
months before." (This was in January, 1862.) "Stanton 
often spoke of and to public men, military and civil, with 
a withering sneer. I have heard him scores of times thus 
speak of Lincoln and several times thus speak to 
Lincoln." . . . "After Stanton's retirement from 
the Buchanan Cabinet, when Lincoln was inaugurated, 
he maintained the closest confidential relations with 
Buchanan, and wrote him many letters expressing 
the utmost contempt for Lincoln. . . . These letters, 
. . . given to the public in Curtis's Life of Buchanan, 
speak freely of the painful imbecility of Lincoln, the 
venality and corruption which ran riot in the Govern- 
ment"; and McChu-e goes on: "It is an open secret that 

^Reminiscences of Lincoln, &c., Allen Thorndike Rice, N. Y., 1886, p. 487. 



The Real Lincoln. 39 

Stanton advised the revolutionary overthrow of the Lin- 
cohi government, to be replaced by General McClellan 
as Military Dictator. . . . These letters, published 
by Curtis, bad as they are, are not the worst letters written 
by Stanton to Buchanan. Some of them are so violent 
in their expression against liincoln .... that they 
have been charitably withheld from the public." 

Hapgood refers (Abraham Lincoln, p. 164) to Stanton's 
"brutal absence of decent personal feeling" towards Lin- 
coln, and tells (p. 254) of Stanton's insulting behavior 
when they met five years earlier, of which meeting Stanton 
said that he " had met him at the bar and found him a low, 
cunning clown." See also Ben Perley Poore in Remi- 
niscences of Lincoln, &c., p. 223. Morse says {Lincoln, 
Vol. I., p. 327) that Stanton "carried his revilings of the 
Presitlent to the point of coarse personal insults," and 
refers (p. 326) to his "habitual insults." Yet to a man of 
President Buchanan's character and standing Stanton 
showed an excess of deference; for Mr. Buchanan com- 
plained in a letter to his niece, Miss Harriet Lane (Curtis's 
Life of Buchanan, Vol. IL, p. 533), that Stanton, when 
in his Cabinet, " was always on my side and flattered me 
ad nauseam J^ 

Schouler says of Stanton (History of the United States, 
Vol. VI., p. 159), "He denounced Lincoln in confidential 
speeches and letters as a coward and a fool." 

Of Secretary Chase, A. K. McClure says (Lincoln and 
Men of the War Time, p. S), " Chase was the most irritating 
fly in the Lincoln ointment." Ida Tarbell says (McClure's 
Magazine for January, 1899), "But Mr. Chase was never 
able to realize Mr. Lincoln's greatness." Nicolay and 



40 The Real Lincoln. 

Hay say {Abraham Lincoln, Vol. IX., p. 389, Vol. VI., p. 
264) of Chase, "Even to complete strangers he could not 
write without speaking slightingly about the President. 
He kept up this habit to the end of Lincoln's life." . , . 
"But his attitude towards the President, it is hardly too 
much to say, was one which varied between the limits of 
active hostility and benevolent contempt." Yet none 
rate Chase higher than Nicolay and Hay do for character, 
talent, and patriotism. Rhodes says {History of the United 
States, Vol. IV., pp. 205 and 210) that Chase's "opinion of 
Lincoln's parts was not high," and that he "dealt unre- 
strained censure of the President's conduct of the war." 



CHAPTER V. 

Did Lincoln Ever Intend that the Masters 
be Paid for Their Slaves? 

piONSPICUOUS among the baseless claims made for 
^' Lincoln is the allegation that he proposed and really 
lad the purpose to compensate the masters for eman- 
cipation of their negroes. Rhodes sets forth the plan 
[History of the United States, Vol. III., p. 631), and 
here and elsewhere labors to vindicate the claim, but he 
^hows by a letter of Lincoln's (p. 632) that Lincoln did 
lot himself expect that it could take any effect anywhere 
5ut in Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, and the District 
)f Columbia. And Rhodes acknowledges that it did take 
effect nowhere but in the District of Columbia, and there 
A'itli compensation to "loyal" masters only. He further 
explains (Vol. IV., p. 218) that the slaveholders of the 
Border States were saved from any temptation to accept 
ivhat was offered by "the belief that it was impossil)le 
■or the North to conc^uer the South. "^ Rhodes goes on to 
iiay that the alternative was " separation of the sections 
w'ith strong guarantees for slavery in the Border States 
which remained with the North; that the remark which 
it is said Lincoln made to Crittenden, 'You Southern men 
will soon reach the point where bonds will be a more valu- 
able possession than bondsmen,' was far from a self-evident 
proposition in February, 1863; in trutli, the reverse was 

'That lincoln's belief then was the same is shown abundantly elsewhere in 
this book, and that fact bears strongly on his claim for credit. 

( 41 ) 



42 The Real Lincoln. 

the estimate of the Democrats." And Rhodes says fur- 
ther (VoL IV., p. 68), that "one other objection must have 

weighed with them It was a part of the plan 

that payment for the slaves should be made in United 
States bonds; and while negro property had become noto- 
riously precarious, the question must have suggested 
itself whether, in view of the enormous expenditures 
of the Government, the recent military reverses, and the 
present strength of the Confederacy, the nation's promises 
to pay were any more valuable." And Rhodes goes on 
still: "The whole conquered part, at least, could be 
counted on to resist a payment from which themselves 
were excluded — any computation of the amount to which 
their slaves added woukl bring the compensation will 
show that no one could ever dream of including them." 
Rhodes quotes from McPherson's Political History the 
answers, to the above effect, given by "a majority of the 
Representatives in Congress of Kentucky, Virginia, Mis- 
souri, and Maryland," who gave as an additional reason 
that they " did not think the war for the Union could possi- 
bly hold out another year, or that the offer would be carried 
out in good faith ; , ' . . . that they doubted the 
sincerity of Congress^ in making the offer." Referring to 
what he calls "current expressions" of opinion in England, 
Rhodes says (p. 79, et seq.): "Lincoln's plan of compen- 
sated emancipation was pronounced chimerical, and its 
purpose insincere," and that it was "issued for the purpose 
of affecting European opinion." Rhodes's desire to vin- 
dicate his hero's claim betrays him into inconsistencies. 
Ida Tarbell, with even greater zeal, calls Lincoln's plan 



2 And Rhodes concedes that he does, too. 



The Real Lincohi. 43 

for emancipating the slaves "simple, just, and impracti- 
cable," and says^ "nothing ever came of it." . . . 

Henry J. Raymond says,'' "The bill was referred to a 
committee, but no action was taken upon it in Congress, 
nor did any of the Border States respond to the President's 
invitation." And Rhodes gives a similar account of it. 

Boutwell says,^ "It is not probable that Mr. Lincoln 
entertained the opinion 'that these measures, one or all, 
would secure the abolition of slavery.' " 

Gorham shows {Life of Edwin M. Stanton, p. 185) his 
impression of Lincoln's purpose, as follows: "The result 
of this so-called Border-State policy seems to have been 
meagre in the way of proselyting slaveholders to the 
Union cause." 

A. K. McClure {Lincoln and Men of the War Time, p. 
223) and Nicolay and Hay {Abraham Lincoln, Vol. X., p. 
132) tell of Lincoln's offering to his Cabinet a written 
plan for emancipation with compensation to the amount 
of $400,000,000, which plan was unanimously disapproved 
by the Cabinet. Like the paper elsewhere described in 
this book, which expressed Lincoln's purposes in view of 
the almost certainly expected election of McClellan to 
the presidency, this plan for emancipation was sealed up 
by Lincoln and committed to the care of one of the Cabinet 
members, and this would seem the only purpose with which 
it could have been prepared. Rhodes quotes {History 
of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 407 and p. 409) an account 
of the matter in Lincoln's own wortls, published in a letter 
which Rhodes says "may be called a stump speech," as 



^McClure's Magazine. Vol. XII.. April, 1899, p. 525. 
^Life and Public Services of President Lincoln, p. 239. 
^Abraham Lincoln Tributes from His Associates, p. 86. 



44 The Real Lineoln. 

follows: "I suggested compensation, to which you an- 
swered that you wished not to be taxed to buy negroes." 
It will be seen that after Lincoln's failure thus to secure 
the support of the Border States, he fell into despair, until 
new measures were devised to enlarge his powers and 
force on the people his re-election. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Opposition to Abolition Before the War. 

BET'^ORE treating the subject indicated l^y the head- 
ing of this chapter, it is convenient to state here 
precisely a widespread, erroneous behef which this book 
undertakes to correct. 

The impression upon the minds of thousands of people 
about the War Between the States may be formulated 
as follows: That at the firing upon Fort Sumter, the peo- 
ple of the Northern States rose with one mind, and for 
the four years of the war ungrudgingly poured forth their 
treasure and shed their blood to re-establish the Union 
and to free the slaves. Let us consider how much foun- 
dation there is for this popular impression. 

In order to show the enormous difficulties overcome 
|jy their hero, Lincoln, in accomplishing his two notable 
achievements, his eulogists have furnished much evi- 
dence that shows that both the coercion of the South 
and the emancipation of the negroes were accomplished 
against the will of the Democratic party and of no small 
part of the Republican party in the North and West, 
and their evidence to that effect will now be submitted. 

As there had been agitation of abolition long before 
any one ever suggested seriously the possibility of coer- 
cion in case States should secede, as was not seldom 
threatened, not in the South only, but by New Eng- 

45 ) 



46 The Real Lincoln. 

land, earlier and quite as earnestly, it is best to consider 
first how far the North and West approved of abolition. 

Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews records the fact^ that aboli- 
tion was opposed by an overwhelming majority of the 
Northern people and the Western people, not only down 
to the war, but during the whole of it, and as long as 
opposition to it was at all safe. Bitter as his reprobation 
of this public sentiment is, he frankly concedes it, and 
says that between 1830 and 1S40 "there was hardly a 
place of any size where any one could advocate emanci- 
pation, and that in 1841 there were but two pronounced 
anti-slavery men in the House of Representatives. The 
Rev. Edward Everett Hale says,^ "As lately as when I 
left college, in 1839, my classmate, the Rev. William 
Francis Channing, was, I think, the only man in our class 
who would have permitted himself to be called an Aboli- 
tionist. I should not, I am sure." 

The Life of Charles Francis Adams, by his son of the 
same name, records (p. 29) that Garrison was mobbed 
in Boston in 1835 for being an Abolitionist. See, also, 
page 33 and page 58. Page 105 and thereafter shows 
how ill-esteemed and shabby the Republican party in 
Washington was as late as 1859. In Edward Everett 
Hale's lately published book, "James Russell Lowell, etc.," 
he names (page 22, et seq.) a classmate who was, he thinks, 
the only Abolitionist in Harvard College in 1838, and 
says (p. 21), "Boston as Boston hated Abolitionism" 
as the stevedores and longshoremen .... hated 

^Andrew's History of the United States, Vol. II., p. 15. It describes besides 
the destruction of charitable schools for negroes and even of their homes, by peo- 
ple regarded as the most respectable classes of society in Connecticut and else- 
where in New England and the prohibition by law of schools for negro children. 

^Memories of a Hundred Years, in the Outlook for August 2, 1902, p. 872. 



The Real Lincoln. 47 

"a nigger"; that Dr. Palfrey, once of the Divinity Faculty 
of Harvard, "like most men with whom he lived, had 
opposed the Abolitionists with all his might, his voice, 
and his pen"; and he adds that "the conflict at the outset 
was not a crusade against slavery." James Russell 
Lowell said (Scudder's Life of Lowell, Vol. 1, p. 187) that 
"when Garrison showed strength in his agitation against 
slavery ..... a prolonged shriek of execration and 
horror quavered from the Aroostook to the Red river." 
The prominent place now given in Longfellow's works to 
his Abolition ]3oems does not prepare us to hear from Scud- 
der {Life of Lowell, Vol. L, p. 183) that the well-known 
Philadelphia publishers Gary & Hart brought out a hand- -g/ 
somely illustrated volume of Longfellow's works from 
which this group of poems was omitted," and on the same 
l^age is a letter of Lowell's in which he refers to "Long- 
fellow's suppression of his anti-slavery pieces."^ 

Schouler says (History of the United States, Yo\. VI., 
p. 216), "Scarcely had an American bard struck his lyre 
to another chord of patriotism save the courageous Whit- 
tier"; . . . and again (p. 337, et seq.), "Hawthorne 
died, despondent of his country, in 1864. Of our galaxy 
of great poets Whittier alone could forge fitly in such a 
lurifl flame." 

The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher said in an address to 
the people of Manchester, England,* that in the North 
"Abolitionists were rejected by society, . . . blighted 
in political life"; that to be called an Abolitionist caused 
a merchant to be avoided as if he had the plague ; that the 

^For LoweU's own attitude, see page 208 of this book. 

*See a collection of his speeches in the Pratt Library, Baltimore, marked 
53866-2557. 



48 The Real Lincoln. 

"doors of confidence were closed upon him" in the church. 
Dr. Holland says (Abraham Lincoln, p. 67) that in 1S30 
the prevailing sentiment of Illinois was "in favor of 
slavery"; . . " the Abolitionist was despised by both 
parties." And George William Curtis reproaches his own 
people (Orations and Addresses, Vol. I., p. 146) as follows: 
"We betrayed our own principles, and those who would 
not betray them we reviled as fanatics and traitors; we 
made the name of Abolitionist more odious than any in 
our annals (Vol. I., p. 28). If a man , . . died 
for liberty, as Lovejoy did at Alton, he was called a fana- 
tical fool." Of the same death the editor of the book 
says (Vol. I., p. 131), "And the country scowled, and 
muttered, 'Served him right.' "^ Curtis goes on, "The 
Fugitive-Slave Law was vigorously enforced in Ohio and 
other States." He quotes (Vol. I., p. 75, et seq.) a decla- 
ration of Edward Everett as Governor of Massachusetts 
that "discussion that leads to insurrection is an offence 
against the Commonwealth," and quotes Daniel AVebster 
that "it is an affair of high morals to aid in enforcing the 
Fugitive-Slave Law." He quotes (Vol. I., p. 88) a speech 
in 1859 of Stephen A. Douglas that fully justified slavery, 
and he quotes him as saying (p. 51), "If you go over into 
Virginia to steal her negroes, she will catch you and put 
you in jail, with other thieves." In the same spirit of 
scornful denunciation as the above, Curtis sets forth (Vol. 
I., pp. 80 to 82) the purpose the North entertained not 
to interfere with slavery. "In other free States men 

^Lovejoy was killed by a mob for incendiary agitation for Abolition — not in 
the South, but in Alton, Illinois, in 1836. Edwin Earle Sparks, in his Mdn Who 
Made the Nation, quotes, at page 36, the Attorney-General of Massachusetts as 
saying to the public meeting that assembled in Faneuil Hall on the occasion of Love- 
joy's death, "He died as the fool dieth." 



The Real Lincoln. 49 

were flying for thoir lives; were mobbed, seized, impris- 
oned, maimed, mm'dered." . . . And all this was 
as late as 1850. "The Southern policy (Vol. I., p. 130, 
et seq.) seemed to conquer. The church, the college, 
trade, fashion, the vast political parties, took Calhoun's 

side In Boston, in Philadelphia, in New York, 

in Utica, in New Haven, and in a hundred villages, when 
an American citizen proposed to say what he thought 
on a great public question .... he was insulted, 
mobbed, chased, and maltreated. Tlie Governor of Ohio 
(Vol. I., p. 131) actually delivered a citizen of that State 
to the demand of Kentucky to be tried for helping a slave 
to escape." He gives (Vol. I., p. 132) Seward's picture 
of the entire unanimity of the Washington Government 
both at home and abroad in supporting the Southern side, 
and says (p. 139), "Fernando Wood and the New York 
Herald were the true spokesmen of the confused public 
sentiment of the city of New York, when one proposed 
the secession of the city and the other proposed the adop- 
tion of the Montgomery Constitution" — that is, the Consti- 
tution of the Confederate States, which was adopted at 
Montgomery, Alabama. And Curtis goes on: "If the city 
of New York in February, 1861, had voted upon its accept- 
ance, it would have been adopted." Referring to the 
enlistment of negroes for soldiers, Curtis says (p. 174), 
" But I remember that four years ago there were good men 
among us who said, 'If white hands can't win this fight, 
let it be lost.' " Does not Curtis here concede that " white 
hands" did not win the fight? Whether he does or not, 
did not Lincoln, in justification of the Emancipation 
4 



50 The Real Lincoln. 

Proclamation, say'' that "white hands" coukl not or would 
not win the fight, and did not Lincoln frequently say after- 
wards, in defence of his autocratic action, that but for his 
emancipating and arming the negroes the fight would not 
have been wonZ- And — finally — did the "white hands" 
of the great North and West lack numbers or wealth or 
courage to win the fight, wdth such odds in their favor, 
if it had been their will?" 

It is not uncommon to hear bitter reprobation of the 
Fugitive-Slave Laws and of the South for daring to ask 
the North and West to execute them. As late as the year 
1902 Harper's Weekly said,'^ "Some laws appeal to the 
human conscience for violation, such as the Fugitive-Slave 
Law, . . . which was merely legislated atrocityj' 
The Fugitive-Slave Laws required citizens of States to 
which slaves escaped to arrest the fugitive by the hands of 
their town and comity police officers and surrender him 
to his master. It was dirty work which gentlemen in the 
South did with great reluctance, if at all, for their neigh- 
bors. Joel Chandler Harris pictures faithfully, in his 
Aaron in the Woods, the sympathy, and aid and comfort 
too, that the runaway had and the reprobation of the 
master who did not keep his negroes happy and content 
at home. Better proof can hardly be imagined to show 
how far the North and West were from favoring emanci- 
pation than the following facts about the Fugitive-Slave 
Laws. 



^Rhodes' History of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 69, gives Lincoln's state- 
ment of the state of the case, from the diary of Secretary Welles, given in a 
drive with Seward and Welles, Sunday, July 13, 1862, as recorded by Nicolay and 
Hay, that the President "had about come to the conclusion that it was a military 
necessity, absolutely essential for the salvation of the nation, that we must free 
the slaves or be ourselves subdued." 

'Editorial of March 8th, p. 293. 



The Real Lincoln. 51 

As to the attitude of the people, Dr. E. Benjamin An- 
drews, wlio is still an ardent admirer of the Abolitionists, 
concedes, as a bitter reproach to the North and West 
(History of the United States, Vol. III., p. 240), that the 
Fugitive-Slave Laws were jxassetl by a Congress that had 
a decided majority of Northern men. George William 
Curtis says (Orations and Addresses, Vol. I., p. 29), "The 
Fugitive-Slave Bill was passed. . . . The North 
seemed to be eager for shame. The Free States hurried 
to kiss the foot of the monstrous power that claimed the 
most servile allegiance." . . . The Fugitive-Slave 
Law was vigorously enforced in other States. The Life, 
of William LJoyd Garrison quotes, in a note on page 60, 
from a letter from AVashington in the Nem York Herald 
of May 16, 1862, as follows: "The Fugitive-Slave Law is 
being quietly enforced in this district to-day, the military 
authorities not interfering with the judicial process. There 
are at least four hundred cases pending." Observe that 
this was nine months after the first battle of Manassas, 
or Bull Run. 

As to Lincoln's own attitude towards the Fugitive-Slave 
Laws, we have the following testimony from the following 
witnesses: Dr. Holland (Abraham Lincoln, p. 347) and 
Markland tell us (Reminiscences of Lincoln, &c., p. 317) 
that Lincoln repeatedly pledged himself to the execution 
of them; that he promised a prominent Kentucky Demo- 
crat that " the Fugitive-Slave Law will be better admin- 
istered under my Administration than it has ever been 
under that of my predecessors"; that "he voluntarily and 
frequently declared that he considered the slaveholders 
entitled to a fugitive-slave law." Ida Tarbell quotes from 



52 The Real Lincoln. 

a letter of Lincoln's {McClure^ Magazine for December, 
1898, p. 162), "You know I think that the Fugitive-Slave 
clause of the Constitution ought to be enforced — to put 
it in the mildest form, ought not to be resisted." »She 
gives, too, in another copy of the same Magazine, a letter 
of Lincoln's to Alexander H. Stephens, late Mcc-President of 
the Confederate States, referring to fears entertained by 
the South that he might interfere directly or indirectly 
with the slaves, and assures Stephens "that there is no 
cause for such fears. The South would be in no more 
danger in this respect than in the days of Washington." 
Even Nicolay and Hay concede {Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 
TIL, p. 253 and p. 258) that he "backed the Fugitive-Slave 
Laws fully, in writing." His Inaugural gave a fresh promise 
that he would execute them. 

As to Lincoln's views about al)olition, we have his own 
full and distinct avowal, made in his speech in reply to 
Douglas at Peoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854:** 

"Before proceeding let me say that I think I have no 
prejudice against the Southern people. They are just 
what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not 
now exist among them, they would not introfluce it. If 
it did exist among us, we should not instantly give it up. 
This I believe of the masses. North and South. Doubtless 
there are individuals on both sides who would not hold 
slaves under any circumstances, and others who would 
gladly introduce slavery anew if it were not in existence. 
We know that some Southern men do free their slaves. 



^Abraham Lincoln's complete works, edited by Messrs. Nicolay and Hay, 
Vol. I., p. 186. 



The Real Lincoln. 53 

go North, and become tip-top Abolitionists, while some 
Northern ones go Soutli and become most cruel slave- 
masters. 

"When Southern peo])le tell us they are no more re- 
sponsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I acknowl- 
edge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, 
and it is very difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory 
way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I 
surely will not blame them for not doing what I should 
not know how to do myself. If all earthly power were 
given me, I should not know what to do as to the existing 
institution. My first impulse would be to free all the 
slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land. 
But a moment's reflection would convince me that what- 
ever of high hope — as I think there is — there may be in 
this in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. 
If they were all landetl there in a day, they would all perish 
in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping 
and surplus money enough to carry them there in many 
times ten days. AVhat then? Free them all, and keep 
them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain this 
betters their condition? I think I would not hold one of 
them in slavery at any rate, yet the point is not clear 
enough for me to denounce people upon. What next? 
Free them, and make them pohtically and socially our 
equals? My own feelings will not admit of this, and if 
mine would, we well know that those of the great mass 
of whites will not. Whether this feeling accords with 
justice and sound judgment is not the sole c[uestion, if 
indeed it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether 
well or ill founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We can- 
not make them ecpals. It does seem to me that systems 



54 The Real Lincoln. 

of gradual emancipation might be adopted, but for their 
tardiness in this I will not undertake to judge our brethren 
of the South. 

"When they remind us of their constitutional rights, 
I acknowledge them — not grudgingly, but fully and fairly; 
and I would give them any legislation for the reclaiming 
of their fugitives which should not in its stringency be 
more likely to carry a free man into slavery than our 
ordinary criminal laws are to hang an innocent one." 

David R. Locke says {Reminiscences of Lincoln, &c., 
p. 445) that in Lincoln's contest with Dougla.s for Congress 
in 1858, the imputation of abolition was what "it was 
Lincoln's chief desire to avoid," as appears in the follow- 
ing words, which show, too, the attitude of that district 
in Illinois towards abolition: "The Republican leaders, 
and Tiincoln as well, were afraid of only one thing, and 
that was having imputed to them any desire to abolish 
slavery. Douglas, in all the debates between himself and 
Lincoln, attempted to fasten abolition on him, and this it 
was Lincoln's chief desire to avoid. Great as he was, he 
had not then reached the point of declaring war upon 
slavery; he could go no further than to protest against its 
extension into the Territories, and that was pressed in so 
mild and hesitating a way as to rob it of half its j^oint." 

Leland (his Lincoln, p. 50, et seq.) quotes from Lamon 
and from Holland to show that Lincoln's anti-slavery 
protests before the war were very mild, and confirms their 
statements about it. 

The Nation of October 7, 1899, quotes from James R. 
Gilmore's Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln and 
the Civil War what Lincoln said to Gilmore in May, 1863. 
The Southern people " think they have a moral and legal 



The Real Lincoln. 55 

right to their slaves, and until very recently the North has 
been of the same opinion." The same book, at page 57, 
says that Gilmore said to Lincoln, in November, 1861, 
"You told me eight months ago that after thirty years 
of agitation the Abolitionists were merely a corporal's 
guard, not a party." All of which shows that it would 
have been what is now called "bad politics" for Lincoln 
to avow abolition sentiments, though it is but justice to 
say that further evidence tends to show that he never 
entertained any such sentiments, although they have been 
attributed to him almost universally, like heroism, re- 
finement, and personal piety, his claims to which virtues 
have been hereinbefore discussed. Rhodes gives,^ without 
comment, a letter from the New York Tribune',''- corre- 
spondent to the managing editor, Sydney Howard Glay, 
giving details of a talk with General AVailsworth, who had 
been with the President and Stanton every day at the 
War Department — frequently for five or six hours — du- 
ring several months. He says, "The President is not with 
us; has no anti-slavery instincts." This is in 1862 that 
he speaks of anti-slavery men as "Radicals, Abolitionists," 
and frequently speaks of "the nigger question." 

A memorial addressed to the President by the Meeting 
of the Christian Men of Chicago, held September 7, 1862,^" 
shows their impression about Lincoln's attitude to emanci- 
pation by quoting from the Bible Mordecai's threat to 
Queen Esther, "If thou altogether boldest thy peace at 
this time, .... thou and thy father's house shall 
be destroyed." 

Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews says:" "Mr. Lincoln and the 

^History of the I'liited Skites. Vol. IV., p. 64, note. 

'"See Fund Publication of the Maiylaiul Uistorical Society, p. 14. 

^^History of the Lnited States, Vol. II., p. 190. 



56 The Real Lincoln. 

Republican party resorted to arms not intending the 
slightest alteration in the constitutional status of slavery," 
Allen Thorndike Rice says^^ Lincoln did not free the 
negro for the sake of the slave, but for the sake of the 
Union. It is an error to class him with the noble band of 
Abolitionists to whom neither Church nor State were 
sacred when it sheltered slavery." 



'-Introduction to Remittiscences of Lincoln, tire, p. 14. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Secession Long Threatened— Coercion Never 
Seriously Thought of Till 1861. 

THE authorities we quote have put on record ample 
proof of a widespread conviction in the North and 
West in 1861 that the use of force to retain States 
in the Union was not only inadmissible under the Consti- 
tution, but abhorrent to the principles on which their 
political institutions rested. 

Mr. Charles Francis Adams asked, in a late address 
to the New England Society of Charleston, South Caro- 
lina, referring to secession, "What at different epochs 
would have been the probable outcome of any attempt 
at withdrawal? .... I hold that it was merely a 
question of time, and that such a withdrawal as then took 
place would never have failed of success at any anterior 
period in our national history." The same very high 
authority says^ that ''up to the very day of the firing 
on the flag the attitude of the Northern States, even 
in case of hostilities, was opcni to grave question, while 
that of the Border States did not admit of a doubt"; 

. . . . " that Mr. Seward, the member of the Presi- 
dent's Cabinet in charge of foreign affairs, both in his 
official papers antl his private talk, repudiated not only 
the right, but the wish even to use armed force in subju- 
gating the Southern States against the will of a majority 
of the people, and declared that the President willingly 

'Lz'/e of Charles Francis Adams, his father, Lincoln's Minister to England, 
p. 49, et seq. 

( 57 ) 



58 The Real Lincoln. 

accepted as true the cardinal dogma of the secedhig States, 
that the Federal Government had no authority for coer- 
cion;^ . . . and all this time (p. 150) the Southern 
sympathizers throughout the 'loyal' States were earnest 
and outspoken." 

General B. F. Butler records (Butler's Book, p. 298) 
that Henry Dunning, Mayor of Hartford, called the City 
Council together " to consult if my troops should be al- 
lowed to go through Hartford on the way to the war. 
He was a true, loyal man, but did not believe in having a 
war He was a patriot to the core." 

Morse makes the following remarkable statement:^ 
"Greeley and Seward and Wendell Phillips, representa- 
tive men, were little better than Secessionists. The state- 
ment sounds ridiculous, yet the proof against each comes 
from his own mouth. The Trihnne had retracted none 
of those disunion sentiments of which examples have been 
given." A. K. McClure shows that Greeley was not 
alone in these views. He says (Lincoln and Men of the 
War Time, p. 292, et seq.), "Not only the Democratic 
party, with few exceptions, but a very large proportion 
of the Republican party, including some of its ablest and 
most trusted leaders, believed that peaceable secession 
might reasonably result in early reconstruction." 

Would Jefferson Davis, would Robert Lee, have asked 
more than McClure here says the two great parties of the 
North and West agreed in believing ought to be done? 

Even so late as April 10, 1861, Seward wrote officially 

^We have a letter of July, 1861, from Seward to Minister Adams, in Rhodes' 
History of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 304, of like dispassionate tone. It blames 
alike "the extreme advocates of African slavery and its most vehement oppo- 
nents," as seeming "to act together to precipitate a .servile war." 

^Lincoln, Vol. I., p. 231. He quotes from Greeley's editorials repeated bitter 
censures of forcing seceded States back into the Union. 



The Real Lincoln. 59 

to Charles Francis Adams, Minister to England, "Only an 
imperial and despotic government could subjugate thor- 
oughly disaffected and insurrectionary members of the 
State." On April 9th the rumor of a fight at Sumter being 
spread abroad, Wendell Phillips said, "Here are a series 
of States girding the Gulf who think that their peculiar 
institutions require that they should have a separate 
government; they have a right to decide that question 
without appealing to you and to me. . . . Standing 
with the principles of 76 behind us, who can deny them 
the right? .... Abraham Lincoln has no right to 
a soldier in Fort Sumter. . . . You cannot go 
through Massachusetts and recruit men to bombard 
Charleston and New Orleans." Morse is comprehensive 
in his statement (Lincoln, Vol. I., p. 233) of the position 
taken by the Republicans, saying of Lincoln's early days 
in Washington, .... "None of the distinguished 
men, leaders of his own party whom Lincoln found about 
him at Washington, were in a frame of mind to assist him 
efficiently." Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews deplores (History 
of the United States, Vol. IL, p. 95) the fact that "coolness 
and absurd prejudice against coercing largely possessed 
even the loyal masses," and that (Vol. IL, p. 95) " through- 
out the North the feeling was strong against all efforts 
at coercion." A. K. McClure says,^ "Even in l^hiladel- 
phia .... nearly the whole commercial and finan- 
cial interests were arrayed against Lincoln at first." 

For months after the secession of South Carolina, wliik» 
the other States were successively passing ordinances of 
secession and seizing the forts, arsenals, &q., within their 



*Our Presidents and How We Make Them, p. 177. See also Morse's Lincoln, 
Vol. I., p. 4, and p. 22. 



60 The Real Lincoln. 

boundaries, the Government at Washington, President, 
Cabinet, Supreme Com't, and Congress, took not one step 
toward coercion, nor did either house of Congress listen 
to a suggestion of emancipation. These Senators and 
Representatives were ahnost all from the North and the 
West, and we may surely conclude that, at so critical a 
period, they ascertained and carried out the will of their con- 
stituents. See the testimony of General B. F. Butler {But- 
ler's Book, Boston, 1892, p. 1009) as to how the Supreme 
Court of the United States stood. He says that "during 
the whole war of the rebellion the Government was rarely 
ever aided, but usually impeded, by the decisions of the 
Supreme Court, so that the President was obliged to 
suspend the writ of habeas corpus in order to relieve him- 
self from the rulings of the court." This is stated by 
General Butler quite seriously, and not, as might possibly 
be supposed, in any satirical mood. Of the Supreme 
Court's Dred Scott decision, Woodrow Wilson says 
(Division and Reunion, p. 198), "The opinion of the court 
sustained the whole Southern claim." 

Ropes says {Story of the Civil War, Part 1, p. 19), "It 
is true that during the winter of 1860 Congress took no 
action whatever looking toward preparation for the con- 
quest of the outgoing States." .... From page 
355 to 553 of the first volume of Greeley's American Con- 
flict there is little but a record of the opposition to coer- 
cion of the South in the "loyal" States. Pages 357 et seq. 
and 354 et seq. show the action of the Legislatures of New 
Jersey and Illinois, both nearly unanimous, in the same 
direction. See, also (Vol. I., p. 380, et seq.), the very strong 
support given to the amendment of the Constitution pro- 
posed by one whom Greeley called " the venerable and 



The Real Lincoln. 61 

Union-loving Crittenden, of Kentucky," which amend- 
ment guaranteed ample protection to slavery, and it could 
have been passed in Congress, but for the fact that they 
knew the South thought the time for compromise was 
past. 

Greeley describes {American Conflict, p. 3S7, et seq.) a 
tremendous demonstration against the threatened war 
made in New York State in February, 1861, in which her 
leaders promised about all the South could ask. In this, 
as hi the New York State Democratic Convention, which 
he describes (p. 392) as " probably the strongest and most 
imposing assembly of delegates ever convened in the 
State," Greeley records expressions of the purpose not 
only not to coerce, but to aid the South in case of war, 
which expressions were heard with applause; and in a 
speech of James S, Thayer, it was alleged that these views 
had been asserted in the last election by 333,000 votes 
in New York. Greeley further makes the following very 
remarkable statement: "That throughout the Free States 
eminent and eager advocates of adhesion to the new Con- 
federacy by those States were widely heard and heeded." 
Vice-President Hamlin said {Life of Hannibal Hamlin, by 
his son, p. 459), "If we had had a common union in the 
North an.d a C(Hunion loyalty to the government, we could 
have ended this civil war months ago, but this aid and 
comfort th(! rebels had received from the Northern 
allies." ... 

Morse {Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I., p. 76) copies from 
a speech made by Lincoln in Congress, January 12th, 
1848, ''Any people anywhere, being inclined and having 
the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the exist- 
ing government, and form a new one that suits them better. 



62 The Real Lincoln. 

This is a most valuable, a most sacred right — a right 
which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor 
is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of 
an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any 
portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and 
make their oivn of so much of the territory as they inhabit." 
On this Morse comments as follows: "This doctrine, 
so comfortably applied to Texas in 1848, seemetl unsuitable 
to the Confederate States in 1861." 

Woodrow Wilson (Division and Reunion, p. 165) says 
some of the Northern Whigs had not hesitated to join 
John Quincy Adams, early in 1843, in declaring to their 
constituents that in their opinion the annexation of Texas 
would bring about and fully justify a dissolution of the 
Union; while later, in 1845, Wm. Lloyd Garrison had 
won hearty bursts of applause from an anti-annexation 
convention held in Boston by the proposal that Massachu- 
setts should lead in a movement to withdraw from the 
Union." 

And Woodrow Wilson sets forth the mind of the Govern- 
ment and the people of the United States in 1860 as fol- 
lows (Division and Reunion, p. 214) : That President Bu- 
chanan . . . " agreed with his Attorney-General that S'j'o 
there was no constitutional means or warrant for coercing 
a State to do her duty under the law. Such, indeed, for 
the time seemed to be the general opinion of the country." 

Colonel Roosevelt, now President, said in his Oliver 
Cromwell, p. 193: "Of course if the Constitution" — of 
1789 — "had made such a declaration" — of the abolition 
of slavery in all the States — "it would never have been 
adopted, while if the Republican platform of 1860 had 
taken such a position, Lincoln would not have been 



The Real Lincoln. 63 

elected, no war for the Union would have been waged." 
And Edward Everett Hale says/' "The reader of to-day 
forgets tliat in the same years in which South Carolina 
was defying the North, Massachusetts gave directions that 
the national flag should not float over her State-House." 
It is interesting to observe ivhat the Rev. Mr. Hale thinks 
South Carolina was defying. 

Schouler (Histoiv/ of the United States, p. 214, et seq.) 
records that General B. F. Butler offered his Massacluisctts 
brigade to put down any negro insurrection, and that 
"few, North or South, during the first year of the war, 
sought or approved emancipation." General B. F. Butler 
says (Butler's Book, Boston, 1S92, p. 293), " If we had beaten 
at Bull Run, I have no doubt the whole contest would 
have been patched up by concessions to slavery, as no one 
in power then was ready for its abolition." Lincoln him- 
self said in his famous letter to Greeley in the Tribune 
"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I 
would do it." 

General B. F. Butler says (Bntlers Book, p. 16S, ct seq.), 
"Mr. Lincoln's Inaugural Address, under advice of Seward, 
left it wholly uncertain whether he would attempt to re- 
take Forts Pickens and Moultrie. 

Bancroft (Life of Seward, Vol. I., p. 93) describes Lin- 
coln's first message as meaning either war or peace, and 
says, "It is now plain that no definite course of action had 
been determined"; and (p. 104) "Seward's method of 
dealing with secession was remarkably like Buchanan's." 

Nicolay and Hay record {Abraham Lincoln, \o\. III., 
p. 247, et seq.) that Lincoln called using force " the ugly 
point." 

^James Russell Lowell and his Friends, p. 105, et sdj. 



64 The Real Lincoln. 

Ropes says (Story of the Civil War, Part II., p. 70, et 
seq.) of the policy urged by Governor Pickens, but not 
adopted by the Confederate Government at Montgomery — 
to seize Sumter before Buchanan's term should end — "It 
is very improbable that Mr. Buchanan would have thought 
himself authorized to call the North to arms if Sumter 
had been attacked while he was President, and it is almost 
certain that Mr. Lincoln would never have taken the risk 
involved in beginning an aggressive war against the South 
in retaliation for any past act, no matter how flagrant." 

What impression as to his intentions Lincoln meant 
to produce is plain from the following: Greeley quotes 
(American Conflict, Vol. I., p. 422) assurances given by 
Lincoln in his Inaugural Address that he would not "inter- 
fere with the institution of slavery where it exists in the 
States." Ida Tarbell quotes the same," and both say 
the assurances were so strong that they should have re- 
mo^'ed the apprehensions of the South. Burgess sums 
11)3 the light on historj^ given by that Inaugural as 
follows:^ "This language was certainly a little con- 
fusing to the minds of Union men, and by so much encour- 
aging to the Secessionists. . . . Mr. Lincoln should 
never have used the word invasion to describe the presence 
of the National Government in any State of the Union, 
or the entrance, so to speak, of the National Government 
into any State of the Union. . . . The idea rests 
upon the most radical misconception of the distinction 
between international and constitutional law. , . . Mr. 
Lincoln also made a mistake in announcing that he would 
not, for the. time being, fill the United States offices, and 

^McClure's Magazine for January, 1899, p. 261. 

''The Civil War and the Constitution, Vol. I., p. 141, very recently published. 



The Real Lincoln. (55 

cause the execution of the United States hiws, in the 
interior of hostile comnuuiities. This encouraged still fur- 
ther the hope and beUef among the masses of the Southern 
States that peaceable disunion was even probable. . . . 
Taken altogether the address shows that even Mr. Lin- 
coln's mind was not altogether clear as to the national 
character of our political system, but it also shows that it 
was clearer than that of any of his contemporaries. The 
whole country, North aiid South, was more or less tainted 
with the doctrine of States' Rights. The difference between 
all the public men of that day was a difference of degree 
more than of kind. It is wonderful that Mr. Lincoln 
should have been, in the midst of such surroundings, so 
clear as he was." 

Is it not shown above that Lincoln's use of military 
force was contrary to views which he had deliberately 
formulated twelve years earlier — contrary to the right 
that John Quincy Adams and William Lloyd Garrison 
had claimed for New England in Boston with applause 
sixteen years earlier — contrary to the mind of the Govern- 
ment and people of the United States on the day when he 
called for 75,000 soldiers? Is it not shown, besides, that 
he betrayed or professed in his Inaugural such hesitation 
as encouraged secession, and that this hesitation was in 
the mind of all the public men of that day who were not 
decided in denial of all right to use force? 

Burgess says {The Civil War and the Constitution, p. 
174), "The Governors of Virginia, North Carolina, Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas flatly and 
insolently refused to obey the President's call for 
troops from those Commonwealths, and the Governors 
5 



66 The Real Lincoln. 

of Maryland and Delaware did not obey it. No 
ordinance of secession had yet been passed by any of these 
Commonwealths, and no one of them claimed to be out 
of the Union. . . . These men made themselves, 
by their military insubordination, subject to a United 
States court-martial. They ought to have been arrested, 
tried, and condemned by a military tribunal for one of 
the most grievous offenses known to public jurisprudence. 
It was the physical power to carry out such a procedure 
that was lacking. ... At this day such an atti- 
tude on the part of State Governors would be regarded 
very differently from what it was then, and might be dealt 
with ver}^ differently.'' But, he says, on p. 198 of same 
\^ol., "It is doubtful if Mr. Lincoln himself and his chief 
advisers realized the enormity of the offense which these 
'Border-State' Governors had committed in refusing to 
send forward the troops." 

See below testimony from very numerous and distin- 
guished witnesses contrasting the unanimity of the people 
of the South and the hesitation about the war everywhere 
in the North, and the wide and bitter opposition to it in 
many places in the North and West. 

Russell* writes from the South: "I have now been in 
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and 
in none of these great States have I found the least indi- 
cation of the Union sentiment which Mr. Seward always 
insists to exist in the South." 

Schouler describes {History of the United States, Vol. 
VI., p. 37) the effect in the South of the news of the fall 
of Fort Sumter. "National allegiance raised scarceh^ a 
whisper, but in the whole insurgent area volunteers ral- 

^My Diary North atid South, p. 976, May 12, 1860. 



The Real Lincoln. 67 

lied for defence, and at sight of the waving stars antl 
bars, as trains crowded with sokhers went by, the j^opuhi- 
tion of the hamlets, and the w'orkei's in the field, black and 
white, cheered for Jeff Davis and the Confederate States." 
Greeley, too, describes the time ( American Conflict, 
Vol. I., p. 362): "For the great mails, during the last 
few weeks of 1860, sped southward, burdened with letters 
of sympathy and encouragement to the engineers of seces- 
sion. . . . As trade fell off and work in the cities 
and manufacturing villages w^as withered at the breath of 
the Southern sirocco, the heart of the North seemed to 
sink within her; and the charter elections at Boston, 
Lowell, Roxbmy, Charlestown, Worcester, &c., in Massa- 
chusetts, antl at Hudson, &c., in New' York, which took 
place early in December, 1860, showed a striking and 
general reduction of Republican strength." 

The Appendix shows that Greeley was an ardent Aboli- 
tionist and the most honored and respected and influen- 
tial Republican of his day, yet see what George William 
Curtis tells of him {Orations and Addresf<es, Vol. II., p. 429, 
et seq.), as follows: "For the right of secession, as Greeley 
maintained, was bottomed on the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence." . . . Such a political philosophy as this, 
proclaimed by a leading organ of the Rej)ublican party, 
created difficulties for a President situated as Mr. Bu- 
chanan was which posterity cannot overlook. 

James Russell Lowell wrote" of the day when Lincoln's 
Administration began, "Even in that half of the Union 
which acknowledged him as President thfM'e was a large 
and at that time dangerous minority that hardly admitted 

^North American Magmine for .January. 1864. 



68 The Real Lincoln. 

his claim to office, and even in the party that elected him 
there was also a large minority that suspected him of being 
secretly a commmiicant with the church of Laodicea." 
Russell quotes (My Diary, North and South, p. 13) 
Bancroft, the historian, afterwards Minister to England, 
for the opinion in 1860 that the United States had no 
authority to coerce the people of the South, and Bancroft 
told Russell that this opinion was widely entertained 
among men of all classes in the North. And Russell 
reports that he found the same opinion prevailing in 
Washington in March, 1861. Russell reprobates with 
contempt such a view for people or government, which 
makes his evidence the more valuable. He quotes (p. 
14) a gentleman as saying that " the majority of the 
people of New York, and all of the respectable people, 
were disgusted at the election of such a fellow as Lincoln 
to be President, and would back the Southern people 
if it came to a split." And Russell goes on (p. 15), in 
March, 1860, " I was astonished to find little sympathy and 
no respect for the newly-installed Government," Dining 
with a banker in New York city, March 18th, 1860, he 
met Hon. Horatio Seymour, Mr. Tilden, and Mr. Bancroft. 
He says (p. 16), "There was not a man who maintained 
that the Government had any power to coerce a State, or 
force a State to remain in the Union." Mr. Seymour held 
that though secession would produce revolution, it was, 
nevertheless, "a right." Russell adds, " In fact, the Federal 
Government is groping in the dark"; and again (p. 18), 
it "appears to be drifting with the current of events." 
He found (p. 28) Senator Sumner and Secretarj'' Chase 
disposed to let the South "go out with their slavery." 
Elsewhere (p. 211) he says of Chase, "He has never dis- 



The Real Lincoln. 69 

giiisetl his belief that the South might have been left to go 
at first, with a certainty of their returning to the Union. 

. . . . Nay (p. 134), more, when I arrived in Wash- 
ington" — which was in March, 18G1 — "some members 
of the Cabinet were perfectly ready to let the South go. 
One of the first questions put to me by Mr. Chase, in my 
first interview with him, was whether I thought a very 
injurious effect would be produced to the prestige of the 
Federal Government in Euro]X' if the Northern States let 
the South have its own way, and told them to go in peace." 
"For m}' own part," said he, "I should not be adverse 
to let them try it, for I believe they would soon find out 
their mistake." Again Russell (p. 30), describing a con- 
ference with Secretary Seward, April 4th, 1861, says 
that Seward "admitted that it would not become the 
spirit of the American Government, or of the Federal 
system, to use armed force in subjugating the Southern 
States against the will of the majoritj' of the people. 
Therefore, if the majority desire secession Mr. Seward 
would let them have it." Russell reports (p. 34) a simi- 
lar conference with Seward in Seward's house, as follows: 

. . . "The Secretary is quite confident in what he 
calls 'reaction.'" "When the Southern States," he says, 
"see that we mean them no wrong — that we intend no 
violence to persons, rights, or things— . . . they will 
see their mistake, and one after another they will come 
back into the Union." 

See another entry in Russell's Diary for July 5th, 1861 
(p. 143), about Lincoln's message just delivered: "After 
dinner I made a round of visits, and heard the diploma- 
tists speak of the message; few, if any, of them, in its favor. 
With the exception of Baron Gerolt, the Prussian Minister, 



70 The Real Lincoln. 

there is not one member of the Legations who justifies 
the attempt of the Northern States to assert the supremacy 
of the Federal Government by force of arms." And again 
Russell records (September 3rd, 1861) that, when there 
was an alarm in Washington, " the Ministers were in high 
spirit at the prospect of an attack on Washington. Such 
agreeable people are the governing party of the United 
States at present, that there is only one representative 
of a foreign power here who would not like to see thenj 
flying before Southern bayonets." 

General Horace Porter records^** that during a visit 
of Stanton to Grant, near Richmond, Stanton gave a 
graphic description of the anxieties that had been experi- 
enced for some months at Washington on account of the 
boldness of the disloyal element in the North. 

General W. T. Sherman says (Memoir, Vol. I., p. 167) 
that in March, 1861, "it certainly looked as though the 
people of the North would tamely submit to a disruption 
of the Union." And of Washington city he says, "Even 
in the War Department and about the public offices there 
was open, unconcealed talk amounting to high treason." 

Channing says (Short History of the United States, p. 303, 
et seq.), "At first it seemed as if Jeff Davis was right when 
he said that the Northerners would not fight." And Keifer 
says (Slavery and Four Years of War, p. 172), "Of course 
there was a troublesome minority North who, either through 
political ])erversity, cowardice, or disloyalty, never did 

support the war, at least willingly And there 

were those also, even in New England, who had never 
had an opportunity to be tainted with slavery, who op- 
posed the coercion of the seceding States, and who would 

^"Century Magazine for June, 1897, p. 201. 



The Real Lincoln. 71 

rather have seen the Union destroyed than saved by 

war Though patriotism was the rule with 

persons of aU parties in the North, there were yet many 
who {professed that true loyahy hiy along lines other than 
the preservation of the Union by war." 

Leland says {Lincoln, p. Ill), "Yet .... the 
Democratic press of the North and the rebel organs of 
the South continued to storm at the President for irrita- 
ting the secessionists, declaring that coercion or resistance 
of the Federal Government to single States was illegal." 
And (p. 103): .... "The Anti-War party was 
so powerful in the North that it now appears almost cer- 
tain that, if President Lincoln had proceeded at once to 
i:>ut down the rebellion with a strong hand, there would 
have been a counter-rebellion in the North. For not 
doing this he was bitterly blamed, but time has justified 
him. By his forbearance, Maryland, Kentucky, and Mis- 
.souri were undoubtedly ke])t in the Federal Union." 

. . . "Hitherto (p. 105) the press had railed at 
Lincoln for wanting a policy; and yet if he had made one 
step towards suppressing the rebels " a thousand Northern 
newspapers would have pounced upon him as one provok- 
ing war." .... "It is certahi (p. 168) that by this 
iiumane and wise policy" — not sending more soldiers 
through BaltimoR' — which many attributed to cowardice, 
President Lincoln not only prevented much bloodshed 
and devastation, but also preserved the State of Mary- 
land. In such a crisis harshly aggressive measures in 
Maryland would have irritated millions on the border, 
and perhaps have proni))tly lirought the war further 
North." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Change of the Issue — Star of the West. 

LINCOLN, knowing the opposition to abolition and to 
coercion and the reachness to resist both that has 
been shown in the last two chapters to exist in the 
North and West, disclaimed, as he had so often done before, 
any purpose of emancipation, and disguised even in his 
Inaugural whatever purpose he had of forcing back the 
seceded States, and astutely used the firing on Fort Sumter 
to rouse the war spirit. The word ." astutely " is aptly 
applied, for the flag had been fired on in the same place 
two months earlier — an exceedingly important fact which 
has been very strangely ignored, but cannot be denied. 
The steamer Star of the West had been^ sent two months 
earlier, January 9, 1861, with food and two hundred re- 
cruits^ to relieve the United States garrison in Fort Svmiter, 
and while flying the great flag of a garrison was fired on, 
was struck twice, and driven away — " retired a little igno- 
miniously," Morse reports it {Lincoln, Vol. I., p. 141); and 
he adds that Senator Wigfall jeered insolently: "Your flag 
has been insulted; redress it if you dare." John A. Logan 
(Great Conspiracy, p. 143) adds further words of Senator 
Wigfall, "You have submitted to it for two months." 
George William Curtis (Orations and Addresses, Vol. I., 

iNicolay and Hay's Abraham Lincoln, Vol. VIII., p. 96, et sec;. 

^It has been represented that the only purpose of the Star of the West was 
to feed the soldiers of the garrison, but, like Nicolay and Hay above, Channing 
in his History of the United States, p. 313, says she carried "supplies and soldiers, 
and Greeley says, in his American Conflict, Vol. I., p. 412, "with two hundred 
men and ample provisions." 

( 72) 



The Real Lincoln. 73 

p. 141) deplores it as follows: "We were unable or unwilling 
to avenge a mortal insult to our own flag in our own waters 
upon the Star of the West." Ropes and Channing^ give 
a like description of the occurrence. Every particular 
above given about the Star of the W^est is confirmed'' 1)}^ 
letters of J. Holt, Secretary of War; of L. Thomas, Assist- 
ant Adjutant-General, and of Lieutenant Charles R. 
Wood, who conducted the expedition. Thomas instructed 
Wood to expect to be fired on by " the batteries on .James' 
or Sullivan's Island," and Holt wrote Major Anderson, 
commandant of Fort Sumter, " Your forbearance to return 
the fire is fully appreciated by the President."'^ 

Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews says (History of the United 
States, Vol. II., p. 50) that Major Robert Anderson, com- 
manding Fort Sumter, "was expressly forbidden," l)y the 
Government in Washington, "to interfere with the erection 
and progress of the works that were being built . . for 
use against his fort." 

Russell wrote to the London Times from America (My 
Diary, North and Soidh, p. 72, et seq., and p. 131, et seq.): 
"It is absurd to assert .... that the sudden out- 
burst when Fort Sumter was fired upon was caused by 
the insult to the flag. Why, the flag had been fired on 
long before Simiter was attacked; .... it had been 
torn down from the United States arsenals and forts all 
over the South and fired upon when the Federal flag was 
flying from tlie Star of the West." He says, too, "Seces- 

'Ropes' Story of the Civil War, Part I., p. 4.5; Channing's Short History of the 
United States, p. 313. 

*War of the Rebellion; Official Records of the I'liion and Confederate Armies, 
Series I., Vol. I., pp. 9. 10, 131-2, 137, 140. 

Tor Major Anderson's own opinion and feeling about using force to restrain 
secession, see page 38 of the same volume. 



74 The Real Lincoln. 

sion was an accomplished fact months before Lincohi 
came into office, but we heard no talk of rebels and pirates 
till Sumter had fallen The North was per- 
fectly quiescent What would not the value 

of ' the glorious burst ' of patriotism have been, had it 
taken place before the Charleston batteries had opened 
on Sumter — when the Federal flag, for example, was fired 
on flying from the Star of the West, or when Beauregard 
cut off supplies, or Bragg threatened Pickens, or the first 
shovelful of earth was thrown up in hostile battery. But 
no. New York was then engaged in discussing States' 
Rights and in reading articles to prove that the new Gov- 
ernment would be traitors if they endeavored to reinforce 
the Federal forts." Gen. Wm. T. Sherman says (Memoir, 
Vol. II., p. 382) : " After the election of Mr. Lincoln in 1860, 
there was no concealment of the declaration and prepara- 
tion for war in the South. In Louisiana, as I have related, 
men were openly enlisted, officers were appointed, and 
war was actually begun, in January, 1861. The forts at 
the mouth of the Mississip})i were seized, and occupied 
by garrisons that hauled down the United States flag and 
hoisted that of the State. The United States arsenal at 
Baton Rouge was captured by New Orleans militia, its 
garrison ignominiously sent off, and the contents of the 
arsenal distributed. These were as much acts of war 
as was the subsequent firing on Fort Smnter, yet no public 
notice was taken thereof." .... This "firing on 
the fiag" on the Star of the West produced no sensation 
at all, but was accepted by the whole country as an accom- 
paniment of the secession of the States. 

Burgess says (The Civil War and the Constitution, Vol. I., 
p. 106) "the firing upon the Star of the West was really 



The Real Lincoln. 75 

the beginning of the war of the rebelUon — . . . (p. 107) 
the Administration simply chose not so to regard it; . . . 
Congress was not prepared for it, and it is not certain that 
the people of the North woukl then have rallied to the 
President's support." 

If there is still any need of apology for the action of 
the Confederate Government in forcibly seizing Fort Smn- 
ter, as it had for many weeks been seizing other forts 
within its territory, we have the defense of it formulated 
by Greeley and recorded without objection or conmient by 
Burgess, who quotes (The Civil War and the Constitu- 
tion, p. 167) Greeley's words, that " the Confederacy had 
no alternative to an attack upon Fort Sumter except its 
own dissolution." 

We have learned afresh of late the meaning of the words 
used above, "to rouse the war spirit.'' A very respectable 
part of the wisdom and virtue of this country deplored 
and reprobated the war lately waged by the United States 
in the Philippines, and yet did make, and could make, 
no opposition, but supported the war just as those did who 
approved it most warmly. We know now that a war, once 
begun, sweeps into its support, not only the regular army, 
the navy, and the treasury, but volunteer organizations 
and the youth of the country, who think they must re- 
spond to any national call for arms. That this " war 
spirit" sent large armies to the field is well known. But 
Rhodes says {History of the United States, Vol. III., p. 
404), "Had the North thoroughly understood the problem; 
had it known that the people of the Cotton States were 
practically unanimous; that the action of Virginia, North 
Carolina, and Tennessee was backed by a large and gene- 



76 The Real Lincoln. 

rous majority, it might have refused to undertake the 

seemingly unachievable task (P. 405). It 

is impossible to escape the conviction that the action of 
the North was largely based on a misconception of the 
strength of the disunion sentiment in the Confederate 
States. The Northern people accepted the gage of war 
and came to the support of the President of the United 
States on the theory that a majority of all the Southern 
States except South Carolina were at heart for the Union, 
and that if these loyal men were encouraged and protected 
the}'' would make themselves felt in a movement looking 
towartls allegiance to the National Government." 

Rhodes is an historian who speaks with very high au- 
thority. May not the concession that he makes above 
be called an apology for a great wrong done the South. 
And does it not suggest the question who it was that led 
the North into the "misconception" that he describes? 



CHAPTER IX. 

Resistance in Congress. 

THE attitude of Congress towards coercion and eman- 
cipation is our best guide as to the attitude of 
their constituents — the people of the States called 
"loyal." Horace Greeley comments as follows on the 
concession made in President Buchanan's last message 
that he had no authority to use force against secession 
(Avierican Conflict, Vol. I., p. 272): .... "This 
assertion of the radical impotence of the Government . . . 
on the part of the President was received in Congress 
with general and concerted taciturnity." . . Gree- 
ley (Vol. I., p. 370) conmiends ardently the long and 
distinguished career of John J. Crittenden, and outlines 
the Crittenden Compromise proposed by him as follows: 
"It allows slavery in the Territories south of 36° 30', 
and says that States from south of that line may come in 
as Slave States. It protects slavery and its owners in 
the District, so long as it exists in Virginia and Maryland, 
or either. The United States shall pay the owners of 
slaves, where they are obstructed by the people of a county 
in using the law for recovery of a fugitive slave. It gives 
assurance that no amendment in the future shall give 
Congress the power to interfere with slavery in the States. 
It pronounces the Personal Liberty Laws null and void." 
Greeley is hotly indignant that such should have been 
the feeling of Congress, but he goes on (Vol. I., p. 380) : 
"The Conservatives, so called, were still able to establish 

(77) 



78 The Real Lincoln. 

this Crittenden Compromise by their own proper strength, 
had they JDeen cUsposed to do so. The President was 
theirs; the Senate strongly theirs; in the House they had 
a small majority, as was evinced by their defeat of John 
Sherman for Speaker." 

As conclusive proof that the North and West had no 
such purpose as emancipation, Schouler (History of the 
United States, Vol. V., p. 507) says of the action of Congress, 
after Lincoln's inauguration, as follows: "One proposed 
amendment, and only one, was sent out with the consti- 
tutional assent of the two Houses;^ not as a compromise, 
but as a pledge. It provided that no amendment should 
be made to the Constitution authorizing Congress to 
abolish or interfere within any State with the domestic 
institution of slavery Republicans, Demo- 
crats, and the great mass of the loyal citizens at the North 
were willing to be bound by such an assurance, hand and 
foot, if need be, in proof that they meant no aggression." 
Is it necessary to suppose they made an}'^ sacrifice in giving 
assurance that they would not interfere, in view of the vast 
amount of evidence that they did not think they ought 
to interfere and had no inclination to interfere? 

Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews confirms the above accounts 
of the Crittenden Compromise that was proposed and the 
amendment that was passed in Congress (History of the 
United States, Vol. II., p. 97), as follows: "Both Houses, 
each l.)y more than two-thirds majority, recommended a 
constitutional amendment depriving Congress forever of 
the power to touch slavery in any State without the con- 
sent of all the States." And he savs of the "Crittenden 



iln a note Schouler gives the vote on it in the House as 133 to 65, and in the 
Senate as 24 to 12. 



The Real Lincoln. 79 

Compromise "' above described, "This measure, before 
Congress all winter, was finally lost for lack of Southern 
vC votes." 

How far Congress was from approving the Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation may be judged by the following words 
of llhodes (A'ol. IV., p. 215) about Lincoln's reconmienda- 
tion of emancipation in his Message of December, 1862: 
"Owing to distrust of him and his waning popularity, 
his reconnnendations in this message were not considered 
by Congress, nor had they, so far as I have been able to 
ascertain, any notable influence on public sentiment." 

Boutwell describes (Lincoln, Tributes from His Asso- 
ciales, p. 87) Lincoln's dealings with one of the amend- 
ments and the reluctance of Congress, as follows: "Slavery 
existed in States that had not engaged in the rebellion, 
and the legality of the Emancipation Proclamation might 
be drawn in question in the courts. One thing more was 
wanted — an amendment to the Constitution abolishing 
slavery everywhere within the jurisdiction of the United 
States. 

The preliminary resolution was seciu'ed after a pro- 
tracted struggle in Congress, and the result was due, in a 
pre-eminent degree, to the personal and official influence 
of Mr. Lincoln. In one phrase it may be said that every 
power of his office was exerted to secure in the Thirty- 
eighth Congress the passage of the resolution by which 
the proposed amendment was submitted to the States."-' 

Nicolay and Hay say (Ahrahnm Lincoln, Vol. J\., p. '■}8) 
that even when his most subservient Congress subsequently 

^n connection with Boutwell's account of the way the "preliminary resolu- 
tion" was pasf^ed in t'ongres's for this amendnieiil , it will be interesting to see, 
in the chapter headed F"ictitious States, how enough States were voted to pass 
the amendment. 



-71. 



80 The Real Liricoln. 

"legalized" his usurpations, "there was about the action 
a certain hesitation which robbed it of the grace of spon- 
taneous generosity." How persistent the opposition con- 
tinued to be may be judged by the fact that Mr. Lincoln's 
Emancipation Proclamation failed, as late as June, 1864, 
to get in Congress the two-thirds vote necessary to fix it 
in the Constitution, and had to go over to the next session, 
when the war was practically ended. 



CHAPTEK X. 

Opposition in the Regular Army. 

C1()T;. A. K. McClure says {Lincoln and Men of the War 
^ Time, p. 56), ''AVhen Lincoln turned to the mili- 
tary arm of the Government, he was appalled by the 
treachery of the men to whom the nation sliould look 
for its preservation." Scarcely any were so devoted to 
the flag, none knew so well the seriousness of the step, as 
the officers of the regular army, but, notwithstanding, Ida 
Tarbell says,* three hundred and thirteen, nearly one-third, 
resigned. General Keifer saj^s {Slavery and Four Years of 
War, p. 171) that about March, 1861, "disloyalty among 
prominent officers was for a while the rule." General Butler 
says that General Scott, commander of the army, recom- 
mended to the President {Butler's Book, p. 99 and p. 142) 
"that the wavward sisters be allowed to depart in peace," 
meanmg the seceded States, and Butler's story is confirmed 
by Channing {Short History of the United States, p. 380, et 
seq.). George Ticknor Curtis gives {Life of James Buchanan, 
Vol. II., p. 297) the particulars of General Scott's "views," 
submitted to President Buchanan, dated October 9th, 
1860, which provided for a division of the Union into 
four separate confederacies. Ida Tarbell shows^ that 
General Scott reconunended to the President the with- 
drawal of the United States troops from Fort Sumter 
and from Fort Pickens in Pensacola harbor. Much pity 

^McClure's Magazine for February, 1899. 
UlcClure's Magazine for April, 1899, p. 263. 

(81 ) 

6 



82 The Real Lincoln. 

has been spent on Major Anderson, cut off from supplies 
and bombarded in Fort Sumter, but one of Lincoln's eulo- 
gists has to rejoice now that he was spared the pain of 
reading the reproaches contained in a letter written him by 
Major Anderson, censuring him for pro])osing to use force. 
The letter miscarried. We have other letters of Major 
Anderson's showing that he, like Scott and Seward, and 
the rest, thought coercion out of the question. He wrote,' 
signing officially, to Thomas, United States Adjutant- 
General, earnestly deprecating the expedition proposed 
to bring him reinforcements in Fort Sumter, saying, ''I 
frankly say that my heart is not in the war that I see is 
to be commenced. That God will still avert it, and cause 
us to revert to pacific measures to maintain our rights, 
is my ardent prayer." Nicolay, too,^ tells of a reproach- 
ful letter that Anderson wrote Lincoln about using force 
at Fort Sumter. Major-General Abner Doubleday gives 
(Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. I, p. 40, et seq.) 
a very full account, as eye-witness of Anderson's whole 
course, in accord with the above. Rhodes {History of 
the United States, Vol. IV., p. 72) quotes from a letter 
of Senator Sumner to John Bright, that Lincoln had 
answered Bright, who urged him to issue an edict of 
emancipation, "I would do it if I were not afraid that 
half the officers would fling down their arms and three 
more States would rise." Hamlin says (Life and Times 
of Hannibal Hamlin, p. 430), "Yet many a gallant Union 
officer .... declared disdainfully that he would 
not fight for the Alwlitionists." .... Schouler 



^War of the Rebellion; Official Records of the Viiion and Confederate Arviies. 
Series I., Vol. I., p. 294. 

^In the eariier book that he wrote, The Outbreak of the Rebellion, at page 55. 



The Real Lincoln. 83 

says {History of the United States, Yo\. VI., p. 218), that 
in 1861 "Sherman and Buell in Kentucky, Dix in Mary- 
hmd, and Halleck in Missouri, slave regions less positively 
disloyal, took a more conservative attitude, and ordered 
slaves to be kept out of their lines," instead of encouraging 
them to leave their masters. Rhodes says (Vol. IV., p. 
182) that Governor 0. P. Morton, of Indiana, charged, 
in his official communications to Washington, General 
Rosecrans with being a rebel sympathizer, which Rhodes 
records, though he does not believe it true, Rosecrans 
being the predecessor of Buell, Grant's predecessor in the 
chief command in the West. Rhodes says {History of the 
United States, Vol. IV., p. 335), "The attitude of all but 
three of Grant's corps commanders on the 19th April, 
1862, may be inferred from the following letter of Grant 
to Halleck of that date : " At best three of my army corps 
connnanders take hold of the new policy of arming the 
negroes and using them against the enemy with a will. 
They, at least, are so much of soldiers as to feel them- 
selves under obligation to carry out a policy which they 
would not inaugurate, in the same good faith and with 
the same zeal as if it was of their own choosing." 

Rhodes ((uotes {History of the United States, Vol. IV., 
p. 73) from Greeley's "prayer of twenty million," else- 
where described in this book, the following: ... "A 
large portion of our regular officers, with many of the 
volunteers, evidence far more solicitude to uphold slavery 
than to put down the rebellion." 



CHAPTER XI. 

Opi)osition in the Volunteer Army. 

TT WOULD be supposed that however many, as above 
-L shown, of the people of the North and West op- 
posed or disapproved the war, it had the ardent 
support of all the soldiers at least who volunteered " to 
defend the flag" on Lincoln's first call for seventy-five 
thousand men. About this we get a strange enlighten- 
ment in the account given by Russell (My Diary, North 
and South, p. 155, et seq.) of his meeting the Fourth Pennsyl- 
vania Regiment going home from the Bull Run battle- 
field to the sound of the cannon that oi)ened the battle. 
A note on page 553 of Greeley's American Conflict describes 
the same from General McDowell's official report of the 
battle of Bull Run,^ how on the eve of battle the Fourth 
Pennsylvania Regiment of Volunteers and the battery 
of artillery of the Eighth New York Militia, whose term 
of service had expired, insisted on their discharge, though 
the General and the Secretary of War, both on the spot, 
tried hard to make them stay five more days; .... 
" and the next morning, when the army moved into battle, 
these troops moved to the rear to the sound of the enemy's 
guns, every moment becoming more distinct and more 
heavy." And Greeley goes on to say, "It should here be 
added that a member of the New York battery aforesaid, 
who was most earnest and active in opposing General 

'See the account of it in General McDowell's report of the battle, in the War 
of the Rebellion; Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I., 
Vol. II., p. 325. 

(84) 



The Real Lincoln. 85 

McDowell's request and insisting on an immediate dis- 
charge, was at the next election, in full view of all the facts, 
chosen sheriff of the city of New York — probably the 
most lucrative office filled by popular election in the 
country."'^ 

In the Outlook of September 6th, 1902, the Rev. Edward 
Everett Hale cjuotes as of unchallenged historic value a 
letter written three weeks after the battle of Bull Run 
by a gentleman in an important ])olitical position in Wash- 
ington, which attributes like shameful desertion in the 
face of the enemy to "various batteries," and their wel- 
come home. He goes on, "How does the country be- 
have? . . . The poltroons, . . . have you hung 
any of them yet in Boston? .... And the people 
of New York let these people return to their business!" 

Russell gives as the reason why General Patterson did 
not bring his army from the upper Potomac to help 
General McDowell at Bull Run,^ that "out of twenty-three 
regiments composing his force, nineteen refused to stay 
an hour after their time." Can any explanation be sug- 
gested but that these soldiers and their friends at home 
reprobated the task to which they were ordered? We 
have General Patterson's report to General Scott* of his 
repeated unsuccessful appeals to his men not to leave 
the army with the enemy in their very presence. He 
furthermore complained (p. 175) that his own zeal and 
loyalty to the cause was publicly impeached, and General 

'If it was possible to conceive of any of the soldiers on the Southern .side so 
deserting the field that day, where would they have found kinsman or friend to 
give them shelter, food, or water, from that day forward? 

^My Diary, North and South, p. 179; see, too, Channing's Short History of the 
United States, p. 308, et seq. 

*War of the Rebellion; Official Records of the I'nion and Confederate Armies, 
Series I., Vol. II., pp. 166-170. 



86 The Real Lincoln. 

Scott's contemptuous answer (p. 178) gives no sort of 
contradiction to the charges. Russell says {My Diary 
North and South, p. 179), "The outcry against Patterson 
has not yet subsided, though" . . . nineteen out of 
twenty-three of his regiments refused to stay in the field, 
as shown above. Gen. W. T. Sherman says (his Memoir, 
Vol. I., p. 1S8), four days after the first battle of Manassas, 
or Bull Run, .... "I had my brigade about as 
well governed as any in that army, although most of the 
ninety-day men, especiall}' the Sixty-ninth, had become 
exceedingly tired of the war and wanted to go home. 
Some of them were so mutinous, at one time, that I had 
Ayre's battery to unlimber, threatening if any dared 
leave camp without orders I would open fire on them." 
Pages 188 to 191 describe a mutiny with Lincoln present, 
and end with, "This spirit of nnitiny was common to 
the whole army, and was not subdued till several regiments, 
or parts of regiments, had been ordered to Fort Jefferson, 
Florida, as punishment." 

The above is hard to reconcile with the popular belief 
that the early campaigns were pushed with enthusiasm 
by the volunteers. Later, at the time when General 
Hooker took command of the Army of the Potomac, we 
have Hooker's testimony, quoted from the Report of 
the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War 
by Col. Henderson, of the English Army {Life of Stoneivall 
Jackson, Vol. IL, p. 505), "At the time the army was 
turned over to me, desertions were at the rate of about 
two hundred a day." Then, after describing, in his words 
elsewliere quoted, the efforts of great numbers of the 
people at home to induce the soldiers to desert, he goes 



The Real Lincoln. 87 

on as follows: "At that time perhaps a majority of the 
officers, especially those high in rank, were hostile to the 
jwlicy of the Government in the conduct of the war. The 
Emancipation Proclamation had been published a short 
time before, and a large element of the army had taken 
sides antagonistic to it, declaring they would never have 
embarked in the war had they anticipated the action of 
the Government." 

Major-General John E. Wool wrote Secretary Stanton, 
September 3rd, 1862,'^ " We have now more treason in the 
army than we can well get along with." 

Ida Tarbell says," ''Nothing could have been devised 
which would have created a louder uproar in the North 
than the suggestion of a draft. All through the winter 
of 1862-63 Congress wrangled over the bill ordering it, 
nuich of the press denouncing it meantime as despotic 
and contrary to American institutions." General Grant 
says {Memoir, Vol. II., p. 23) that during August, 1864, 
"right in the midst of these embarrassments, Halleck 
informed me that there was an organized scheme on foot 
to resist the draft, and suggested that it might become 
necessary to withdraw troops from the field to put it down." 
Nicolay and Hay (Vol. VI., p. 3) tell of violent resistance 
to the draft in Pennsylvania. 

About the volunteer soldiers' attitude toward emanci- 
pation we find the following: 

Schouler says of General B. F. Butler {History of the 
United States, Vol. VI., p. 216), When he reached Mary- 
land, mider the first call to arms, "he offered the use of 

^War of the Rebellion; Ojlictal Records of tlie I'nion and Confederate Armies, 
Series III., Vol. II., p. .509. 

'^McClure'a Magazine. Vol. XIII,, for June, 1899, p. 156. 



88 The Real Lincoln. 

his regiment, as a Massachusetts Brigadier, to put down 
any slave uprising that might occur there." Nicolay 
and Hay say {Abraham Lincohi, VoL I., p. 185) that the 
Union army showed the strongest sympathy with its always 
immensely popular general, McClellan, in liis bold protests 
against emancipation, and that there was actual danger of 
revolt in the army against the Emancipation Proclamation 
when General Burnside turned over the command of his 
army of one hundred and twenty thousand men to General 
Hooker in Virginia. In Warden's Life of Chase (p. 485, 
et seq.) a letter of September, 1802, from Chase to John 
Sherman, says : " I hear from all sources that nearly all 
the officers in Buell's army, and that Buell himself, are 
pro-slavery in the last degree." From Hilton Head, 
South Carolina, General 0. M. Mitchell reported to Secre- 
tary Stanton,^ September 20, 1862, "I find a feeling pre- 
vailing among the officers and soldiers of prejudice against 
the blacks; .... am entirely certain that under 
existing organization there is little hope of allaying or 
destroying a feeling widely prevalent and fraught w4th 
the most injurious consequences." Page 431 shows the 
same General, writing to Halleck, General in Chief at Wash- 
ington, in March, 1863, "I was thus saddled with pro- 
slavery generals in whom I had not the least confidence." 

''War of the Rebellion; O/ficial Records of Union and Confederate Ar7nies, Series 
II.. Vol. XIV., p. 438. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Opposition to the Emancipation 
Proclamation. 

CH.^NING says {Short History of the United States, 
p. 329) of freeing the slaves as a war measure, that 
though he Icnew he liacl a perfect right to do it, 
Lincoln knew that public opinion in the North would not 
approve tliis action. 

A. K. McClure, discussing the question whether to 
emancipate, speaks of "the shivering hesita- 
tion of even Republicans throughout the North." . . . 

The same says,* "The Emancipation Proclamation had 
been issued that caused a cold chill throughout the Re- 
l)ublican ranks, and there was little prospect of filling up 
the broken ranks of our army." And the same McClure 
refers (p. 228) to the "blatant disloyalty that was heard 
in ma)iy places throughout the North." 

Rhodes says {History of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 
162), "But Lincoln himself, with his delicate touch on 
the pulse of public opinion, detected that there was a lack 
of heartiness in the response of the Northern people. In 
his "strictly private" letter to Hamlin, the Vice-President, 
he manifested his keen disappointment. "While I hope 
something from the proclamation," he wrote, "my expec- 
tations are not as sanguine as those of some friends. The 
time for its effect southward has not come: but northward 
the effect should be instantaneous. It is six days old, and 

^Recollections of Half a Centurij, copyriRht, 1902, p. 220. 
(S9) 



90 The Real Lincoln. 

while commendation in the newspapers and by (Ustin- 
guished men is all that a vain man could wish, the stocks 
have declined and troops come forward more slowly than 
ever. This, looked soberly in the face, is not very satis- 
factory." 

Henderson (Life of Stonewall Jackson, Vol. II., p. 355, 
et seq.), though he conmiends with ardor Lincoln's issue 
of the Emancipation Proclamation, says that by it " the 
Constitution was deliberately violated," and that "the 
armies of the Union were called upon to fight for the free- 
dom of the negro"; .... that "the measure was 
daring. It was not approved by the Democrats — and 
many of the soldiers were Democrats — or by those — and 
they were not a few — who believed that compromise was 
the surest means of restoring peace; .... who 
thought the dissolution of the Union a smaller evil than 
the continuance of the war. The opposition was very 
strong." .... 

A. B. Hart says (Life of Salmon P. Chase, p. 309), 
. . . . "But one of the effects ... of the first 
Proclamation of Emancipation was an increase of the 
Democratic vote in Ohio and in Indiana, and the conse- 
quent election of many Democratic members of Congress." 

In the "Life and Times of Hannibal Hamlin,^' by Chas. 
Eugene Hamlin, Cambridge, 1899, pp. 436, 437, we find 
the following: "The generally accepted explanation of 
the Republican reverses in the election of 1862 is that they 
were primarily due to the Emancipation Proclamation, 
which was issued in September." c^- \-i.x3, iA^4J^' 

Dr. Holland says (Abraham Lincoln, 1S66, p. 408: 
"Either through the failure of McClellan's campaign, or 



The Real Lincoln. 91 

the effect of the emancipation, or the influence of botli 
together, the Achninistration had received a rebulve through 
the autunni elections of 1862. Rhodes says (History of 
the United States, Vol. IV., p. 163), " In October and Novem- 
ber elections took place in the principal States, with the 
results that New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, all of which except New 
Jersey had cast their electoral votes for Lincoln, declared 
against the party in power. A new House of Representa- 
tives was chosen, the Democrats making conspicuous gains 
in the States mentioned. The same ratio of gain ex- 
tended to the other States would have given them the 
control of the next House — a disaster from which the 
Administration was saved by New England, Michigan, 
Iowa, and the Border Slave States. The elections came 
near being what the steadfast Re})ublican journal, the New 
York Times, declared them to be, 'A vote of want of 
confidence in the President.' Since the elections followed 
so closel)^ upon the Proclamation of Emancipation, it is 
little wonder that the Democrats declared that the people 
protested against Lincoln's surrender^ to the radicals, 
which was their construction of the change of policy from 
a war for the Union to a war for the Negro. Many wi'iters 
have since agreed with them in this interpretation of the 
result. No one can doubt that it was a contributing 
force operating with these other influences: the corruption 
in the War Department before Stanton became Secretary, 
the suppression of free speech and freedom of the press, 
arbitrary arrests which had continued to be made by mili- 
tary orders of the Secretary of War." 

Nicolay and Hay record (Abraham Lincoln, \o\. II., 

K)bserve the significant word used by Rhodes. 



92 The Real Lincoln. 

p. 261) great losses in the elections in consequence of the 
Emancipation Proclamation. General B. F. Butler says 
{Butlers Book, p. 530): "November came, and with it 
the elections in the various States. The returns were 
ominous and disheartening enough. Everywhere there 
was reaction of feeling adverse to the Administration. 
In the strong Republican States majorities were reduced. 
In all others the opposition was triumphant and the 

iVdministration party defeated Among the 

causes of the defeat was opposition to the Government's 
anti-slavery policy." And Butler quotes from a letter of 
Seward to his wife that "the returns were ominous"; 
that in all but strong Republican States " the opposition 
was triumphant and the Administration party defeated." 
Ida Tarbell, in McClure's Magazine for January, 1899 
(p. 165), says: "Many and many a man deserted in the 
winter of 1862-1 <S63 because of the Emancipation Proclama- 
tion. He did not believe the President had the right to 
issue it, and he refused to fight. Lincoln knew, too, that 
the Copperhead agitation had reached the army, and that 
hundreds of them were being urged by parents and friends 
hostile to the Administration to desert." Page 162 shows 
that Lincoln himself "comprehended the failure to re- 
spond to the emancipation or to support the war"; that 
(p. 163) "New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illi- 
nois, and Wisconsin reversed their vote, and the House 
showed great Democratic gains." A. K. McClure's (Lin- 
coln and Men of the War Time, p. 112, et seq.) says : " There 
was no period from January, 1864, until 3d of September, 
when McClellan would not have defeated Lincoln for 
President." 



The Real Lincoln. 93 

Charles A. Dana, in his Recollections of the Civil War 
(p. 180, et seq.) says: "The people of the North might 
tiiemselves have become half rebels if this proclamation had 
l)een issued too soon," and that " two years before, perhaps, 
the consequences of it might have been our entire defeat." 

The Emancipation Proclamation has been described in 
song and story, on canvas ami in marble, as a joyous and 
exultant announcement of freedom to the slaves. See 
how differently Ida Tarbell describes it and its author, 
and she is almost a worshipper of Lincoln. She says : " At 
last (p. 525, et seq.) the Emancijiation Proclamation was 
a fact, but there was little rejoicing in his heart, .... 
no exultation; .... indeed, there was almost a 
groan in the words in which, the night after he had given 
it out, he addressed a party of serenaders." . . . Rhodes 
says (History of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 72, et seq.) 
that on the 22nd of July, 1862, Seward objected in Cabinet 
meeting to giving out the threat of his purpose to emanci- 
pate that Lincoln issued " as likely to seem at this juncture 
the last measure of an exhausted government; . . our 
last shriek in retreat." And Miss Tarbell records that 
Lincoln himself said a few months later: "Hope and 
fear contended over the new policy in uncertain conflict." 
And she goes on : " As he had foreseen, dark days followed. 
There were mutinies in the arm}^; . . . the events 
of the fall brought him little encouragement. Indeed, the 
promise of emancipation seemed to effect nothing but 
disappointment and uneasiness; stocks went down; troops 
fell off. In five great States — Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, 
Pennsylvania, and New York — the elections went against 
hhn."" 



CHAPTER Xlll. 
In What Proportion Divided. 

IF ALL this testimony suggests :i desire to know in what 
proportion the people of the North and West were 
divided between those who approved Lincohi's great 
achievements and those who disapproved them, answers 
more or less specific — some of them estimating the numer- 
ical ratio — are furnished by the witnesses whose testimony 
we have been considering. Burgess says (The Civil War 
and the Constitution, Vol. T., p. L34) of the Democratic 
])arty in LS60, . . . "There was another great party 
at the North, numbering almost as many adherents as the 
Republican party itself, which was ready to yield to almost 
any demand, as the price of the Union, that the Secessionists 
might make." . . A letter of General Wni. T. Sherman 
to General Halleck, of September 17th, 1863, says (Memoir, 
Vol. L, p. 339): "The people of even small and unimpor- 
tant localities. North as well as South, had reasoned them- 
selves into the belief that their opinions were superior 
to the aggregated interests of the whole nation. Half 
our territorial nation rebelled, on a doctrine of secession 
which they themselves now scout; and a real numerical 
majority actually believed that a little State was endowed 
with sucli sovereignity that it would defeat the policy 
of the great whole." Leland, after stating (Lincoln, p. 
94) that when the Confederate Government was organized 
at Montgomery " no one had threatened the new Southern 
Government, and at this stage the North would have suf- 

(94) 



The Real Lincoln. 95 

fered it to withdraw in peace from the Union," . . . . 
says (p. 96) specifically that "the number of men in the 
North who were willing to grant them everything very 
nearly equalled that of the Republican party." Again 
Leland says (p. 95, et seq.), "But the strict truth shows 
that the Union ])arty, what with the Copperheads, or 
sympathizers with the South, at home, and with open 
foes in the field, was never at any time much more than 
ecjual to either branch of the enemy, and that, far from 
being the strongest in mnnbers, it was as one to two. 
Those in its ranks who secretly aided the enemy were 
numerous and powerful. The Union armies were some- 
times led by generals whose hearts were with the foe." 
And Leland goes on (p. 96), "President Lincoln found 
himself in command of a beleagured fortress, ... a 
powerful enemy storming without, and nearly half his 
men doing their utmost to aid the enemy from within." 
So rjuite consistently Leland explains (p. 170) the atti- 
tude of England, as follows : " To those who did not under- 
stand American politics in detail, the spectacle of about 
one-third of the jioj^ulation, even though backed by con- 
stitutional law, opposing the majority, seemed to call for 
little sympathy." And Dr. Holland says {Abraham Lin- 
coln, p. 291), "All these labors Lincoln performed with 
the knowledge . . . that seven States were in open 
revolt and that a majority throughout the Union had not 
the slightest sympathy with him."^ 



'Dr. Holland is one of Lincoln's most ardent eulogists. Perhaps he did not 
know that Lincoln had said, in a published letter, which Rhodes says, Vol. IV., 
p. 409, may be called "a stump speech"' as follows: "I freely acknowledge my.self 
the servant of the people, according to the bond of service — the United States 
Constitution — and that, as such, I am responsible to them." 



96 The Real Lincoln. 

Henderson says,^ "The majority of the Northern people 
held the Federal Government paramount, but, at the 
same time, they held that it had no power either to punish 
or coerce the individual States. This had been the atti- 
tude of the founders of the Republic, and it is perfectly 
clear that their interpretation of the Constitution was 
this: Although the several States were morally bound 
to maintain the compact into wdiich they had vohmtarily 
entered, the obligation, if any one State chose to repudiate 
it, could not be legally enforced. Their idea was a Union 
based upon fraternal affection. 

" Mr. Lincoln's predecessor in the presidential chair had 
publicly proclaimed that coercion was both illegal and 
inexpedient, and for the three months which intervened 
between the secession of South Carolina and the inaugu- 
ration of the Repuljlican President, made not the slight- 
est attempt to interfere with the peac(\able establish- 
ment of the new Confederacy. Not a single soldier 
reinforced the garrisons of the military forts in the 
South. Not a single regiment was recalled from the 
western frontiers; and the seceded States, without a word 
of protest, were permitted to take possession, with few ex- 
ceptions, of the forts, arsenals, navy-yards, and custom- 
houses which stood on their own territory. It seemed 
that the Federal Government was only waiting until an 
amicable adjustment could be arrived at as to the terms 
of separation." Morse, in like manner, goes back to tell 
how President Buchanan and the leaders and the press 
regarded and dealt with the actual secession of States 
which began and grew to maturity in President Buclian- 



^Life of General Thomas J. Jackson — StonexcaU Jackson — p. 116, et seq. 



The Real Lincoln. 97 

an's administration. Referring to Buchanan's last mes- 
sage, in which he pronounced coercion to be quite out of 
the question, Morse says (his Lincoln, Vol. I., p. 190, 
et seq.) : '' But while this message of Mr. Buchanan has 
been bitterly denounced, and with entire justice, . . yet 
a palliating consideration ought to be noted. He had 
little reason to believe that, if he asserted the right and 
duty of forcible coercion, he would find at his back the 
indispensable force, moral and physical, of the people. 
Demoralization at the North was widespread. After the 
lapse of a few months this condition passed, and then 
those who had been beneath its influence desired to forget 
the humiliating fact, and hoped that others might either 
forget, or never know the measure of their weakness. In 
order that they might save their good names, it w\as natural 
that they should seek to suppress all evidence which had 
not already found its way upon the public record; but 
enough remains to show how grievously for a while the 
knees were weakened under many who enjo}^ — and right- 
fully, by reason of the rest of their lives — the reputation 
of stalwart patriots.^ 

For example, late in October General Scott suggested 
to the President a division of the country into four separate 

^Morse might have quoted Governor Hicks, of Maryland, as a notable example. 
General Butler, at page 208 of Butler's Book, says, in describing his moving his 
Massachusetts troops to Washington by way of Annapolis, "Governor Hicks had 
protested to me against the landing of my troops, and he had also protested to 
the President, to whom he had made the amazing proposition that the national 
controversy should be referred to Lord Lyons, the British Minister." Nicolay's 
Outbreak of the Rebellion quotes Hicks, at page 88, as assuring the Baltimorean.s 
gathered on Monument Square, after their bloody collision with the Massachusetts 
soldiers, on the 19th of April, that he would wish his "right arm might wither" 
should he fail in such an emergency. And Lamon's Lincoln, at page 517, quotes 
the words from a letter of Governor Hicks about the same time which expresses 
his wish that the guns he is issuing may be used "to kill Lincoln." This Morse, 
too, quotes in his Lincoln, p. 197, et seq. 



98 The Real Lincoln. 

confederacies, roughly outlining their boundaries. Scott 
was a dull man, but he was at the head of the army and 
enjoyed a certain prestige, so that it was impossible to 
say that his notions, however foolish in themselves, were 
of no consequence. But if the blunders of General Scott 
could not fatally wound the Union cause, the blunders of 
Horace Greeley might conceivably do so. Republicans 
everywhere throughout the land had been educated by 
his teachings and had become accustomed to take a large 
part of their knowledge and their opinions in matters 
political from his writings. Then follows (p. 191) Gree- 
ley's full acknowledgment of the right of secession which 
appears above.'' And it was this man — an authoritative 
though unofficial poioer in the land — who dared to say in 
his great open letter addressed to Lincoln through his 
Tribune as quoted above, " Nine-tenths of the whole Amer- 
ican people, North paid South, are anxious for peace — 
peace on almost any terms"; a ratio of opposition greatly 
above Leland's computation above quoted. That Greeley 
said this advisedly, with the fullest knowledge, and honestly, 
cannot be questioned. 

Nor Avas the New York Herald behind the Neio York 
Tribune in like protests. Morse says {Lincoln, Vol. I., 
p. 193), "On November 9th, I860, the Democratic New 
York Herald, discussing the election of Lincoln, said: 
" For far less than this our fathers seceded from Great 
Britain"; it also declared coercion to be "out of the ques- 
tion," and laid down the principle that each State possesses 
the "right to break the tie of the confederacy as a nation 
might break a treaty, and to repel coercion as a nation 

^Pages .58 and G7 of this book. 



The Real Lincoln. 99 

might repel invasion." Greeley, too, quotes (American 
Conflict, Vol. I., p. 358, et seq.) the Neio York Herald of 
9th November, 1860: .... ''And if the Cotton 
States shall decide that they can do better out of the Union 
than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace. The right 
to secede may be a revolutionary one, but it exists never- 
theless; and we do not see how one party can have a right 
to do what another party has a right to prevent. We must 
ever resist the asserted right of any State to remain in the 
Union and nullify or annul the laws thereof. To withdraw 
from the Union is quite another matter. And whenever 
a considerable section of our Union shall deliberately 
resolve to go out we shall resist all coercive measures to 
keep it in. We hope never to live in a Republic whereof 
one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets." 

See also Butler^ s Book, p. 141, et seq., for editorials of 
Greeley's Tribune, avowing that States might properly 
secede. 

Hugh McCulloch says {Men and Measures of Half a Cen- 
tury, p. 15), " Still, as I have said, it is by no means certain 
that secession would have been crushed in its incipient 
stages if a more resolute man than Mr. Buchanan had been 
in his place." Again he says (p. 154) that the leaders in 
secession, "did not, however, anticipate a general uprising 
of the people of the Middle and Western States in defense 
of the Union. They confidently expected that Missouri, 
Kentucky, and Maryland would unite with other States 
in which slavery existed, and that Indiana, Illinois, and 
Ohio would give reluctant and partial aid to the Federal 
Government, if coercive measurers should be resort(!d to 
for its support. For these expectations there were appar- 

L.ofC. 



100 The Real Lincoln. 

ently good reasons.^ The most prominent men in Missouri, 
Kentucky, and Maryland, if not Disunionists, were more 
attached to slavery than the Union, while their people 
generally were bound to the people of the Southern States 
by family or commercial ties. What might be called the 
civilization of those Central States was widely different 
from that of the Northern States, and they would un- 
doubtedly have joined the South if they had not been 
prevented by the prompt and energetic measures of the 
Government. The disposition of the people of Maryland 
was indicated by the treatment which a Massachusetts 
regiment received as it passed through Baltimore. At 
the commencement of the war Missouri was in open revolt, 
and desperate battles were fo\ight upon her soil before 
she could be prevented from casting in her lot with the 
South. The same influences which were at work in Mis- 
souri and Maryland were potent also in Kentucky." He 
then gives his personal observations in Kentucky, showing 
that it was with the South. He says (p. 155) of Missouri 
and Kentucky, "Both would have united with the South 
if they could have had their own way. Nor was the ex- 
pectation unreasonable that the Western free States and 
some of the leading Republicans also were opposed to coer- 
cion." McCulloch goes on (page 158) : 'Tn traveling through 
Southern Indiana in the autumn of 1860 and the following 
winter, I was amazed and disheartened by the general 
prevalence of the non-coercive sentiment. . . As far as I 
could learn, the same opposition to coercion prevailed 
to a considerable extent in the other free States bordering 

^Besides the "good reasons" given by McCulloch, other very strong reasons 
are given in this book for the failure in every one of the States he names to meet 
the expectations of the Southern leaders. For these "strong reasons" see chapters 
17 to 23 inclusive of this book. 



The Real Lincoln. 101 

upon the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and I could not help 
feeHng that the Union .... had no dee)3 hold on 
the affection of the people. . My duties as President of 
the Bank of the State required my presence at Indianapolis 
when the Legislature of 1860-61 was in session, and I was 
astonished at some of the speeches of some of its most 
prominent members against what they called coercion — the 
coercion of sovereign States. In their opinion, the Union 
was not worth preserving, if it could only be preserved 
by force. Indiana, they said, would furnish no soldiers, 
nor would she permit soldiers from other States to pass 

through her territory, to subjugate the South 

The sentiment of southern Illinois was in sympathy with 
that of the people of southern Indiana." 

If any higher and more conclusive authority than those 
above quoted about the question in hand can be imagined, 
it is Secretary Stanton, speaking as Secretary of War for 
Lincoln. In defense of the President's usurpation of 
despotic powers, he issued February 14th, 1861, a paper 
which contains the following: "Every department of the 
Government was paralyzed by treason. Defections ap- 
peared in the Senate, in the House of Representatives, in 
the Cabinet, in the Federal Courts. Ministers and Consuls 
returned from foreign countries to enter the insurrection- 
ary councils. Commanding or other officers of the army and 
in the navy beti'ayed our councils or deserted their posts 
for commands in the insurgent forces. Treason was fla- 
grant in the revenue and in the post-office service, as well 
as in the Territorial governments and in the judicial re- 
serves. 

"Not only governors, judges, legislators, and ministerial 



102 The Real Lincoln. 

officers ill the States, but whole States, rushed out one after 
another with apparent unanimity into rebelhon. , . . 
Even in the portions of the country which were most 
loyal political combinations and secret societies were 

formed furthering the work of disunion 

Armies, ships, fortifications, navy-yards, arsenals, military 
posts and garrisons, one after another, were betrayed or 
abandoned to the insurgents." 



CHAPTER XIY. 

Attitude of England. 

THE fact that the great number of ]3eople in the North 
and West who opposed coercion had the sympathy 
of England will not be without interest. Rhodes 
says (History of the United States, Vol. III., p. 503) : "John 
Stuart Mill speaks of the 'rush of nearly the whole of the 
ujiper and middle classes of my own country, even those who 
pass for liberals, into a furious pro-Southern partisanship, 
the working classes and some of the literary and scientific 
men being almost the sole exceptions to the general frenzy. 
Autobiography, p. 26S.'" Mill's tone shows that he is 
an unwilling witness to the state of feeling in England. 
And on the next page to the above, Rhodes quotes the 
London Times of the 7th of November, 1861, as follows: 
" The contest is really for empire on the side of the North 
and for independence on that of the South, and in that 
respect we recognize an exact analogy between the North 
and the government of George III. and the South and the 
thirteen revolted provinces. These opinions may be wrong, 
but they are the general opinion of the English nation." 
On page 509 Rhodes again quotes the London Times of 
October 9, 1861: "The people of the South may be wrong, 
but they are ten million." Elsewhere (Vol. IV., p. 358) 
Rhodes says, "Four-fifths of the House of Lords w^re 
'no well-wishers of anything American,' and most of the 
House of Commons desired the success of the South." 
And Rhodes shows (Vol. IV., p. 337) such an attitude of 

(103) 



104 The Real Lincoln. 

the premier and of Earl Russell that Mr. Adams, United 
States Minister to England, wrote, September 2, 1862, 
" Unless the course of the war should soon change, it seems 
to me my mission must come to an end by February." 
Again he reports (p. 339) that "Gladstone, October 7, 
1862, at a banquet at New Castle said, ' We may anticipate 
with certainty the success of the Southern States so far 
as their separation from the North is concerned,' " Rhodes 
quotes (p. 392, et seq.) Gladstone writing to Senator Sum- 
ner, November, 1863, " In England I think nearly all 
consider war against slavery unjustifiable," and complains 
(p. 80) that Gladstone said to the men of Manchester, 
April 14th, "We have no faith in the propagation of free 
institutions at the point of the sword." Rhodes quotes, 
too (note on p. 85), from a letter from the Duke of Argyle 
to Sumner, "I cannot believe in there being any Union 
party in the South, and, if not, can the continuance of 
the war be justified?" 

Not the war only upon the South, but its being forced 
on the people of the North and West met heavy censure 
from England. Rhodes says (History of the United States, 
Vol. III., p. 514) of the London Times and the Saturday 
Review, Their "criticisms of the arbitrary measures of 
our Govermnent .... were galling," and quotes 
from the Saturday Review of the 19th of October, 1861, 
"The arrest of the newly-elected members of the legis- 
lative assembly of Maryland before they had had any 
time to meet, without any form of law or prospect of trial, 
merely because President Lincoln conceived that they 
might in their legislative capacity do acts at variance 
with his interpretation of the .American Constitution, 



The Real Lincoln. 105 

was as perfect an act of despotism as can be conceived. 
. . . . It was a coup d'etat in every essential feature," 
and the paper goes on, November 23, 1861, "The land of 
the free is a land in which electors may not vote, for fear 
of arrest, and judges may not execute the law, for fear of 
dismissal — in which unsubmissive advocates are threat- 
ened with imprisonment and hostile newspapers are sup- 
pressed." No wonder, then, that, as Rhodes tells us 
(Vol. II., p. 27), "James Russell Lowell took grievously 
to heart the comments of the English press and the actions 
of the English Government." 

If to any one it seems that England's course needs 
apology or defense, we have it, published lately, and by a 
very able writer, and one with no sort of leaning toAvards 
the South or tolerance of slavery. The Literary Digest 
for March 29, 1902, at page 417, q\iotes from the Atlantic 
Monthly, Goldwin Smith, as follows: "The sympathy of 
the people of England in general could be challenged by 
the North only on the ground that the North was fighting 
against slavery. But when we, friends of the North, 
urged this plea, we had the misfortune to be met by a 
direct disclaimer of our advocacy on the part of our clients. 
President Lincoln repudiated the intention of attacking 
slavery. Seward repudiated it in still more emphatic terms. 
Congress had tried to bring back the Slave States to the 
fold by promises of increased securities for slavery, in- 
cluding a sharpening of the Fugitive-Slave Law. What 
had we to say? .... Had the issue been, as Lin- 
coln, Seward, and Congress represented, merely political 
and territorial, we might have had to decide against the 
Xorth. Few who have looked into the history can doubt 



106 The Real Lincoln. 

that the Union originally was, and was generally taken 
by the parties to be, a compact dissoluble, perhaps most 
of them would have said at pleasure, dissoluble certainly 
on breach of the articles of the Union. Among these 
articles, unquestionably, were the recognition and protec- 
tion of slavery, which the Constitution guaranteed by 
means of a fugitive-slave law. It was not less certain that 
the existence of slavery was threatened by the abolition 
movement at the North, and practically attacked by the 
election of Lincoln, who had declared that the continent 
must be all slave or all free; meaning, of course, that it 
must be all free." He quotes Lincoln's formal declara- 
tion of the right of secession in his speech beginning '' any 
people anywhere," &c., recorded at page 61 of this book, 
and goes on as follows: '* A stronger ground for separation 
there could not possibly be than the radical antagonism 
between the social organizations of the two groups of 
States, which made it impossible that they should live 
in harmony under the same political roof, and had rendered 
their enforced imion a source of ever increasing bitter- 
ness and strife 

"If England was divided in opinion, so was the North 
itself. There was all the time in the North a strong Demo- 
cratic party opposed to the war. The autumn elections 
of 1862 went greatly against the Government. It was in 
expectation of calling forth Northern su]}port that Lee 
invaded Pennsylvania, and had he conquered at Gettys- 
burg, his expectation would probably have been fulfilled. 
It actually was fulfilled, after a fashion, by the draft riot 
in New York." The Independent, too (for April 10, 1902, 
p. 850), quotes Goldwin Smith: "In justice to the British 



The Real Lincoln. 107 

people it must always be borne in mintl that the American 
Government had distinctly proclaimed that the abolition 
of slavery was not the object of the war." 

The sympathy of the Continental powers of Europe 
concerns us less than that of England, exhibited above, 
but it is interesting to notice how the sjanpathy of one of 
them lay, as exhibited in the following extract: 

Munseifs Magazine (for May, 1902) cfuotes from George 
Bancroft's Eulogy of Lincoln, delivered 12th February, 
1866, in the Hall of Representatives, a reference to the 
Pope, who "alone among the temporal sovereigns recog- 
nized the Chief of the Confederate States as a President, 
and his supporters as a people, and gave counsels for peace 
at a time when peace meant the victory of secession." 



CHAPTER XV. 

Despotism Conceded. 

IF ANY are scandalized or startled at seeing Lincoln 
called usurper or despot, they are invited to observe 
that he was denounced as both by many great 
Republican leaders of his own day. The words in which 
Fremont, Wendell Phillips, Fred Douglass, and Horace 
Greeley, all stanchest of Republicans and Abolitionists, 
issued their call for the convention of Republicans that 
met at Cleveland, Ohio, May 31, 1864, for the sole pur- 
pose of defeating Mr. Lincoln's second election, were as 
follows: "The public liberty was in danger"; that its object 
was to arouse the people "and bring them to realize that 
while we are saturating Southern soil with the best blood 
of the country in the name of liberty, we have really parted 
with it at home."^ 

Capt. C. C. Chesney, of the Royal Engineers, says,^ 
the garrison of Washington was being drained, not so 
much for Meade's re-enforcement as to check the insurrec- 
tion in New York. And when Ijce had retired to the Rapi- 

^It is interesting to compare these words with those in which John Paul Jones 
gave a warning to the great Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, when 
Jefferson asked and obtained from him an elaborate memorandum of liis views 
of the merits of the constitution when it was finished. His words in the memo- 
randum are as follows: . . . "Though General Washington might be safely 
trusted with such tempting power as the chief command of the fleet and the army, 
yet, depend on it, in some other hands it could not fail to overset the liberties of 
America. . . . Deprive the President of the power or the right to draw his 
sword and lead the fleet and the army, under some plausible pretext or under 
any circumstances whatever, to cut the throats of part of his fellow citizens in order 
to make himself tyrant over the rest." 

2\'ol. II., p. 131. Just after Gettysburg. 

(108) 



The Real Lincoln. 109 

dan, Chesney says of Meade in his front, " Large tletach- 
nients were at this time made from his strength to increase 
the garrison which was to aid General Dix in enforcing 
the obnoxious conscription in New York." Again he 
speaks (p. 149) of Lincohi and his Cabinet as reducing the 
Army of the Potomac largely in order to carry out the con- 
scription, which they had been obliged to postpone in New 
York. Ninety thousand troops under General Dix occu- 
pied that rebellious city in August, 1863, and the obnoxious 
ballot was enforced without further resistance, in spite of 
"the strenuous opposition of Governor Seymour." . . . 

Rhodes tells (History of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 164, 
et seq.) of .... "open dissatisfaction which in 
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin broke out into positive vio- 
lence over the draft necessary under the call for 300,000 
militia." 

Among many records of the suppression of newspapers 
we have the following, in a letter of Gen. John A. Dix^ to 
Secretary Stanton, February IS, 1862, "Sanmel Sands 
Mills, publisher and proprietor, and Thomas H. Piggott, 
editor, of The South, were arrested last evening, kept in 
the station-house during the night, and sent to Fort Mc- 
Henry this morning. The office of The South was seized 
last evening, and is in possession of the police. John M. 
Mills, a partner in the concern, has also been arrested, 
and will be sent to Fort McHenry immediately." 

The same, page 791, has in a note, "For the full proceed- 
ings of the House on July 18, 1861, concerning the charges 
against May, the attack by a Baltimore man on the Federal 
troops, and Chief of Police Kane's connection there- 

^War of the Rebellion; Official Records of the Union and Confederate ArmieB, 
Series II., Vol. II., p. 788. 



110 The Real Lincoln. 

with, see Congressional Globe for July 20, 1861, p. 196, 
et seq^ 

The same vohime, page 795, gives Pinkerton's report 
of the arrest, about midnight, 12th September, 1866, of 
Messrs. Scott, Wallis, F. Key Howard, Hall, May, and 
Warfield. 

The same volume, p. 938 to 956, tells of the arrest of 
Messrs. Flanders Brothers, editors of the Gazette, Franklin 
coimty, N. Y., for complete opposition to the war — and 
of exclusion of the Gazette from the mails. 

Rhodes describes (History of the United States, Vol. IV., 
p. 175, et seq.) the suppression of a "disloyal" paper in 
Cincinnati, and (p. 253) the exclusion from the mails of 
the Neiu York World and the suppression of the Chicago 
Times by General Burnside, and says of Burnside's orders, 
"Strange pronunciamentos were these to apply to the 
States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, where there was no 
war; where the coiu'ts were open and the people were 
living under the American Constitution and English law." 
Could there be more conclusive evidence of the attitude 
of Chicago and the great States he names, for which Chi- 
cago is a great commercial centre, than Rhodes's record, 
as follows: "The Times had gone beyond any print. North 
or South, in its opposition to the war and its devotion to 
the interests of the rebellion." Rhodes goes on to say 
(p. 254) that " the President yielded, .... but he 
deserves no credit, .... for he simply responded to 
the outburst of sentiment" in Chicago, manifested by 
action of the city government and the State government, 
"which sentiment," he adds, "was beginning to spread 
over the whole North." Rhodes's note on page 253, 



The Real Lincoln. Ill 

(piloted from the Chicago Tribune of June 5, 1863, gives 
more light on the matter and fixes the date of the events. 

We have Lincoln's own order to General Dix of May 
IS, 1864,^ to "arrest and imprison in any fort or militaiy 
prison in your command the editors, proprietors and pub- 
lishers of the Neiv York World and the Neiv York Journal 
of Commerce.'' The two journals were the very embodi- 
ment of all that was most respected, so that General Dix 
hesitated (p. 388), and was compelled to obey by peremp- 
tory letters from Secretary Stanton. Rhotles mentions 
(History of the United States, Vol. III., p. 555) "the arrest 
of a crippled newsboy for selling the Neiv York Daily News 
in Connecticut." 

It would be difficult to characterize the above described 
usurpations in language stronger than was applied at the 
time. Rhodes quotes (p. 555) from a lecture of Wendell 
Phillips delivered in New York and Boston December, 
1861, as follows: "Lieber says that habeas corpus, free 
meetings like this, and a free press, are the three elements 
which distinguish liberty from despotism. All that Saxon 
blood has gained in the battles and toils of two hundred 
years are these three things. But to-day, Mr. Chairman, 
every one of them — habeas corpus, the right of free meeting, 
and a free press — is annihilated in every square mile of the 
Republic. We live to-day, every one of us, under martial 
law. The Secretary of State puts into his bastile, with a 
warrant as irresponsible as that of Louis XIV., any man 
whom he pleases. And you know that neither press nor 
lips may venture to arraign the Government without being 
silenced. At this verv moment one thousand men at 



^Record of the Rebellion; Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 
Serial Number 125, p. 388. 



112 The Real Lincoln. 

least are ' bastiled ' by an authority as despotic as that of 
Louis For the first time in our history gov- 
ernment spies frequent our great cities." And Rhodes 
quotes (p. 534) protests of Robert C. Winthrop, in a speech 
of November 2, 1864 — ahnost three years later — of '' news- 
papers silenced and suppressed at the tinkhng of an exe- 
cutive bell a thousand miles away from the scene of hos- 
tilities." And Rhodes goes on (p. 556), "Yet the matter 
did not go unquestioned. Senator Trumbull introduced 
a resolution asking information from the Secretary of 
State in regard to these arrests, and, in his remarks sup- 
porting it, pointed out the injustice and needlessness of 
such procedure. "What are we coming to," he asked, 
"if arrests may be made at the whim or the caprice of a 
Cabinet Minister?" and, when Senator Hale asked, "Have 
not arrests been made in violation of the great principles 
of our Constitution?" no one could gainsay it"; and Rhodes 
says (p. 557), "In truth, the apprehension of men in Maine, 
Vermont, Connecticut, and northern New York on sus- 
picion that they were traitors, instead of leaving them to 
be dealt with by the public sentiment of their thoroughly 
loyal communities, savored rather of an absolute monarch 
than of a desire to govern in a constitutional way.'^ 

Rhodes quotes from a letter from Schleinden to Sumner 
(p. 442), "One of the most interesting features of the 
present state of things is the unlimited power exercised by 
the Govenmient. Mr. Lincoln is in that respect the equal, 
if not the superior, of Louis Napoleon, and Rhodes refers, 

^Lincoln has been accused by no one else of "capriciousness." Does not this 
book show that the States Rhodes names, and all the rest where these despotic 
methods were used, were not "thoroughly loyal," and that at least four of them 
would have joined the Confederacy if Lincoln had not restrained them by these 
methods and other similar defiance of all constitutional restraint? 



The Real Lincoln. 113 

too, (p. 514) to "the comparison constantly made in Eng- 
land between the coup d'etat of Louis Napoleon and the coup 
d'etat of Abraham Lincoln," and, excusing the use of such 
power, adds, "The county attorney of Illinois had assumed 
the power of a dictator"; and this as early as July, 1861. 
Rhodes's History of the United States is one of the latest 
records in this matter. While he eulogizes Lincoln as 
ardently as any other, as is shown in the Appendix, he 
speaks (Vol. IV., p. 234, et seq.) of "the enormity of the 
acts done under his authority," and says "he stands re- 
sponsible for the casting into prison of citizens of the United 
States to be counted by thousands (p. 230) on orders as 
arbitrary as the Lettres de Cachet of Louis XIV.," when 
the mode of procedure might have been, "as in Great 
Britain in her crises between 1793 antl 1802, on legal war- 
rants," and he pronounces Lincoln's conduct "inexpedient, 
unnecessary, and wrong."" And Rhodes says more speci- 
fically on the same page, "After careful consideration, . . . 
I do not hesitate to condemn the arbitrary arrests and the 
arbitrary interference with the freedom of the press in 
States which were not in the theatre of the war and where 
the courts were open; .... that the offenders 
should have been prosecuted according to law, or, if their 
offenses were not indictable, permitted to go free." Be- 
sides all this, Rhodes gives (Vol. IV., p. 169 to p. 172) 
unqualified commendation to Governor Seymour for a 
patriotic spirit and proper jealousy for his country's 
liberty shown in his bitter opposition to Lincoln's usurpa- 
tions, and shows how very far Seymour's resentment to- 

*" Wrong" it was, doubtless; but was it inexpedient or unnecessary? Without 
it would the people of the States called "loyal" have continued the war or re- 
elected Lincoln? 

8 



114 The Real Lincoln. 

wards Lincoln went. Rhodes even calls Lincoln a " tyrant." 
Of a proclamation issued two days after the edict of Eman- 
cipation he says (p. 169, et seq.), after giving particulars 
of it, that it "applied to the whole country, . . . . 
and was the assumption of the authority exercised by an 
absolute monarch." And he (quotes Joel Parker, Pro- 
fessor of Law in Harvard, as follows: "Do you not per- 
ceive that the President is not only an absolute monarch, 
but that his is an absolutely uncontrollable government, 
a perfect military tlespotism?" And Rhodes says (p. 170) 
of Curtis, a Justice of the Supreme Court, that "he now 
published a pamphlet, entitled Executive Power, which 
called Lincoln "a usurper" and his power "a military 
despotism." And Rhodes adds, .... "Indeed it 
is not surprising that it gave currency to an opinion that 
he intended to suppress free discussion of ])olitical events." 

Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia for 1864, page 307, calls 
the Wade-Davis Manifesto, which will be described below, 
" a bitter attack on the President, remarkable as coming 
from the leaders of his own party," and this Rhodes quotes 
(p. 487) without dissent, and even gives the following com- 
mendation of Wade and Davis (p. 229): "Their criticism 
of the Executive for suspending the privilege of the writ 
of habeas corpus, for arbitrary arrests, for the abridgment 
of the freedom of speech and of writing, were justly taken 
and undoubtedly had influence for good on the legislation 
of the session. This connnendation, like what he gives 
Seymour and others for bitter opposition to Lincoln and 
denunciation of him, sounds strange, coming from Rhodes. 

Rhodes twice concedes (Vol. IV., p. 169, et seq., and 
p. 556, et seq.) Lincoln's full responsibility for the despotic 
acts of his ministers, Stanton and Seward, but appends 



The Real Lincoln. 115 

to the latter the following — a feeble defense indeed: "It 
is not probable that Lincoln of his own motion would have 
ordered them, for although at times he acted without war- 
rant of the Constitution, he had a profound preference 

for it It was undoubtedly disagreeable to 

him to be called by Vallandigham 'the Csesar of the Ameri- 
can Repubhc,' and by Wendell Phillips 'a more unlimited 
despot than the world knows this side of China,' and to 
l)e aware that Senator Grimes described a call at the White 
House, for the purpose of seeing the President, as 'an 
attempt to approach the footstool of the power enthroned 
at the other end of the Avenue.'" 

The above follows his account of very notable arrests 
(p. 555 to p. 557) arbitrarily made in Northern States. 

William A. Dunning, President of Columbia University, 
says in his Essays on the Civil War, dated 1898 (p. 39, et 
seq.), that President Lincoln's Proclamation of September 
24, 1862, was "a perfect plot for a military despotism," 
and that "the very demonstrative resistance of the people 
to the Government only made the military arrests more 
frequent"; .... that (p. 24, et seq.) "Mr. Lincoln 
asserted the existence of martial law .... through- 
out the United States." He says "thousands were so 
dealt with," .... and that (p. 40) "the records of 
the War Department contain the reports of hundreds of 
trials by military conunissions with punishments varying 
from light fines to banishment and death." Lalor's 
Encyclopedia says the records of the Provost Marshal's 
office in Washington show thirty-eight thousand political 
prisoners, but Rhodes (Yo\. IV., p. 230, et seq.) says the num- 
ber is exaggerated. Holland's Lincoln shows (p. 476, et seq.) 
that when Lincoln killed, by "pocketing" it, a bill for the 



116 The Real Lincoln. 

reconstruction of the Union which Congress had just passed, 
Ben Wade and Winter Davis, aided by Greeley, pubUshed 
in Greeley's Tribune of August 5th "a bitter manifesto." 
It is charged that the President, by preventing this bill from 
becoming a law " holds the electoral vote of the rebel States 
at the discretion of his personal ambition," and that "a 
more studied outrage on the authority of the people has never 
been perpetrated." A. K. McClure's Lincoln and Men of 
the War Time gives the same accoimt. See, too, Schouler's 
History of the United States, p. 469. Channing says (Short 
History of the United States, p. 331, et seq.): "Many persons 
in the North thought that the Southerners had a perfect 
right to secede if they wished. Some of these persons S3Tnpa- 
thized so thoroughly with the Southerners that they gave 
them important uiformation and did all they could to hinder 
Lincoln in conquering the South. It was hard to prove 
anything against these Southern sympathizers, but it was 
dangerous to leave them at liberty. So Lmcoln ordered 
many of them to be arrested and locked uj). Lincoln now 
suspended the operation of the writ of habeas corpus. This 
action angered many persons who were quite willing that 
the Southerners should be compelled to obey the law, but 
did not like to have their neighbors arrested and locked up 
v\ithout trial." And Channing goes on (p. 332), "The draft 
was bitterly resisted in some parts of the North, especially 
in New York city." 



CHAPTER XYl. 
Outline of the Despotism. 

THE opposition to coercion anil to emancipation that 
has been shown so strong in the people of the States 
called "loyal," in their Congress, in their regular 
army, and in their volunteer army, was all included under 
one charge of "disloyalty" and suppressed by the usurpa- 
tion of despotic power. 

How^ fully Lincoln used every method of a military 
despot in suppressing it is shown by examination of a single 
chapter of Bancroft's Life of Willam H. Seivard. The 
following extracts from it need little conmient. Lest any 
reader should suppose that Bancroft means to expose 
or arraign Lincoln or his agent, Seward, for the arbitrary 
arrests and imprisomnents that he describes, be it under- 
stood that he does no more than mildly concede that 
Seward's zeal in a good cause betrayed him into undue 
severities in the "loyal" States. He says expressly (Vol. 
II., p. 276, et seq.) : " For the general policy as practiced 
in the Border States there is no ... . occasion to 

apologize But there were some serious abuses 

of this arbitrary power in the far Northern States." Again 
he says (Vol. III., p. 254) of Seward, "Probably the detec- 
tion of political offenders and the control of political pris- 
oners were the most distracting of all his cares." His 
mode of arrest and confinement of the prisoners is described 
as follows (Vol. II., p. 2.59): "Some of the features bore 
a striking resemblance to the most odious institutions of 

(117) 



118 The Real Lincoln. 

the ancient regime in France — the Bastile and the Lettres 
de Cachet." " Tlie person 'suspected' of disloyalty was 
often seized at night, borne off to the nearest fort, deprived 
of his valuables, locked up in a casemate, .... gen- 
erally crowded with men who had similar experiences. . 
If he wished to send for friends or an attornej^, he 
was informed that the rules forbade visitors, that attor- 
neys were entirely excluded, and that the prisoner who 
sought their aid would greatly prejudice his case.^ An 
appeal to Seward was the only recourse — a second, third, 
and fourth, all alike useless. The Secretary was calm in 
the belief that the man was a plotter and would do no 
harm while he remained in custody." It was found best 
(Vol. XL, p. 262) "to take prominent men far from their 

homes and sympathizers The suspected men, 

notably Marylanders, were carried to Fort Warren or 

other remote places In most cases from one 

to three months elapsed before definite action was taken 

by the department If the arrest had been 

made without due cause, no oaths or conditions of release 
were required. " .... So, too, " if the alleged offence 
had been too highly colored by a revengeful enemy. "^ See 
particulars of several cases (Vol. II., pp. 264 to 276) given 

'Secretary Seward wrote to Keys, U. S. Marshal, "you will therefore please 
inform all the prisoners at Fort Warren . . . that if the fact comes to the 
knowledge of this department that any prisoner has agreed to pay to any attor- 
ney a sum of money, or to give him anything of value as a consideration for 
interceding for the release of such prisoner, that fact will be held as an additional 
reason for continuing the confinement of such-, persons. War of the Rebellion; 
Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series II., Vol. I., p. 614. 

2In the War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate 
Armies, Series I., Vol. I., p. 599, Gen. John A. Dix cautions Secretary Seward as 
follows: "I arrested in an interior county and brought to this city two men charged 
with open acts of hostility to the government on testimony vouched by the United 
States Marshal, yet they turned out to be two of the most consistent and active 
Union men in the neighborhood." 



The Real Lincoln. 119 

by Bancroft, and especially one where the action was 
aimed at Ex-President Pierce, "who beUeved," Bancroft 
records, "the South to be the aggrieved party." Bancroft 
winds up this wdth the comprehensive statement that 
"not one of the political prisoners'* was brought to trial. 
As a rule they were not even told why they were arrested. 
When the pressure for judicial procedure or for a candid 
discussion of the case became too strong to be resisted on 
plausible grounds, the alleged offender was released."^ 

Bancroft says fmlher (Vol. 11., p. 276, el seq.), "The 
least excusable feature was the treatment of the prisoners. 
Month after month many of them were croAvded together 
in gloomy and damp casemates, where even the dangerous 
'pirates' captured on privateers and soldiers taken in 
battle ought not to have remained long. Many had com- 
mitted no overt act. There were among them editors 
and political leaders of character and honor, but whose 
freedom would be prejudicial to the prosecution of the 
war (Vol. II., p. 278). It was inevitable that innocent 
men should be caught in the dangerous machinery. It 
afforded rare opportunities for the gratification of personal 
enmities and the display of power on the part of T'nited 
States marshals and military officers It hap- 
pened more than once that men languished in prisons for 
weeks before any one at the department even heard their 
names." 

Justice to the great States that were reduced to sub- 

^Vol. II., p. 270. He means of those confined by Seward. 

■'It is notable that Bancroft, a man of our own day — he lectured to the students 
of the Hopkins Unixersity in 1901 — records with complacency, or at least without 
apology, such despotic treatment of American citizens. It is, however, consistent 
with his calling the ships of war and the officers of the Confederate Navy "priva- 
teers" and "pirates," as elsewhere quoted. Seinmes and Arthur Sinclair have 
told how this navy swept from the face of the waters the whole merchant marine 
of the United States with the sympathy of nearly all Christendom. 



120 The Real Lincoln. 

mission makes it necessary to give a few of the cruelties — 
the barbarities — suffered by many of the imprisoned. The 
Hon. Charles James Faulkner, who enjoyed very high 
honors from Virginia before and after the war, came back 
from his duties as Minister to Paris, was arrested on landing 
in New York and imprisoned in Fort Lafayette, whence 
he wrote the Secretary of State,' September 13th, 1861, " A 
small casemate of this frontier and isolated fortification 
accommodates eight persons including myself. Through 
three small apertures a dim and imperfect light is admitted 
— not sufficient to enable the occupants to read or write 
unless when the door is open, which can only be when 
allowed by the state of the weather and the regulations 

of the fort In another casemate near me are 

twenty-four prisoners in chains." 

This would have been extraordinary cruelty if the pris- 
oners had been under conviction of crimes, but the same 
volume, at pp. 411 to 413, describes far more barbarous 
treatment of the gallant Colonel Thomas — known as 
Zarvona Thomas. 

Godkin, of the New York Nation, might well say, as he 
did in one of his later editorials, "The first real breach in 
the Constitution was made by the invention of the war 
-power to enable President Lincoln to abolish slavery. No 
one would now say that this was not at that time necessary, 
but it made it possible for any President practically to 
suspend the Constitution by getting up a war anywhere." 

. . . . Bancroft gives various examples (p. 235, 
note) of the method of arrest — simple telegrams, signed 
"Seward," "Stanton," or "Richard H.Dana" — one was, 

^War of the Rebellion; Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 
Series II., Vol. II., p. 470. 



The Real Lincoln. 121 

"Send Wm. Paine to Fort Lafayette. F. W. Seward"; 
for even a deputy, son of the Secretary, exercised tremen- 
dous power. Republicans were arrested, too, (p. 235). 
Most notable of the protests against the arrests was one 
in a s[)ecial message of Gov. Curtin, of Pennsylvania, one 
of the great "war-governors," attached to Lincoln, and 
from the first a zealous supporter of the Emancipation 
Proclamation. A. K. McClure describes {Lincoln and Men 
of the War Time, p. 164) how he got a man named Jere 
jMcKibben released from quite causeless imprisonment by 
Stanton, and adds, "I liad quite frequently been to Wash- 
ington before when arbitrary and quite unjustifiable arrests 
of civilians had been made in Pennsylvania." Rhodes says 
{History of the United States, \o\. IV., p. 413,) "Seward and 
Stanlon had caused many arrests with no more formality 
than a telegraphic dispatch." 

The sacred right to trial, without which all other rights 
are vain, was almost always denied, as elsewhere shown, 
but release was sometimes granted on singular conditions, 
as when'' James G. geixlet, Ma5T)r of Washington city, " was /5a^vti^ 
required as a condition of his discharge from Fort Dela- 
ware to resign the office of Mayor." The same volume 
tells of the arrest and imprisonment of the editor of the 
Repvblican Watchman, of Greenport, Long Island, and 
(p. 070) shows that his family were supported by subscrip- 
tions of sympathizing neighbors. 

The story is well known that when the English Minister, 
Lord Lyons, called the attention of the Secretary of State, 
Seward, to the bitter opposition to the war that was show- 
ing itself everywhere, Seward answered that with his little 

^War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 
Series II., Vol. II., pp. 596 to 599. 



122 , The Real Lincoln. 

bell he could imprison any citizen in any State, and that 
no one but the President could release him. Bancroft 
says (Vol. II., p. 280): "If he made this remark, it is of 
no special importance; it was a fact that he was almost as 
free from restraint as a dictator or a sultan." 

The methods of the State Department that are described 
above did not surpass in any respect those of the W'ar 
Department. The latter even created new offenses, ending 
a list of them with,^ "any other disloyal practice," and it 
authorized and directed "arrest and imprisonment in the 
discretion of even chiefs of police of any town or district." 

'^War of the Rebellion; Official Records of the Cnion and Confederate Armies, 
Series III., Vol. II., p. 321. 



CHAPTER XYII. 

General Oi^position and Resistance to Coer- 
cion and to Emancipation. 

THE advocacy of views strongly opposed to the war and 
to emancipation did not cease in the North and the 
West when the war began, dangerous as it soon 
became to advocate them. Imprisonment without trial, 
trials by court-martial, sentences to confinement in prisons 
or fortresses remote from home and friends, did reduce 
at last to silence all but the boldest— even Missourians, 
Kentuckians, and Marylanders; and similar methods of 
repression were usetl in States remotest from the scenes 
of the war. In this chapter an account will be given of 
the general resistance throughout the North and West, 
and succeeding chapters will describe the resistance in 
the separate States and groups of States, and the methods 
by which resistance was suppressed. 

Nicolay and Hay give (Vol. VIII., p. 29, et seq.) a full 
account of the "disloyalty" in the North and West, and 
say, too (Vol. lY., p. 234), that "in the Western States 
the words Democrat and Co]3perhead became after Jan- 
uary, 1863, practically synonymous, and a cognomen 
applied as a reproach was assumed with pride.' ' Professor 
Channing, of Harvard, says,* " In the Mississippi ^^alley 
hundreds of thousands of men either sympathized with 
the slaveholders or cared nothing about the slavery dis- 

'Channing's Short History of the United States, p. 314. 
(123) 



124 The Real Lincoln. 

pute." George S. Boutwell says/ "With varying degrees 
of intensity the Democratic party of the North sympa- 
thized with the South, and arraigned Lincoln and the 
Repiibhcan party for all that the country was called to 
endure. During the entire period of the war New York, 
Ohio, and Illinois were doubtful States, and Indiana was 
kept in line only by the active and desperate fidelity of 
Oliver P. Morton." Secretary Welles, of Lincoln's Cabinet, 
says (Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XVI., p. 266): "The Demo- 
crats were in sympathy with the rebels, .... and 
opposed to the war itself." 

Ridpath says,^ " During this year (1863) the Administra- 
tion of President Lincoln was beset with many difficulties. 
. . . . The Anti-War party of the North had grown 
more bold, and openly denounced the measures of the 
Government In many places the draft offi- 
cers were forcibly resisted." .... The anti-war 
spirit in some parts of the North ran so high that on the 
19th of August President Lincoln issued a proclamation 
suspending the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus 
throughout the Union." 

Everywhere there were men who made more or less bitter 
protest or resistance against such subversion, by methods 
known only to the Sultan or the Czar, of what .Americans 
had been taught to call the conditions of freedom — a free 
press, free speech, the writ of habeas corpus, and trial by 
jury. In Cincinnati, in Chicago, in Boston, and elsewhere, 
demonstrations toward violent resistance very alarming 
to the Administration at Washington were suppressed 
with the strong hand before coming to a head. Gilmore 

^Abraham Lincoln, Tributes from His Associates, p. 85, et seq. 
^Popular History of the United States, published in 1883, p. 522. 



The Real Lincoln. 125 

(Personal Recollections of Lincoln, p. 199) speaks of "the 
wide Western conspiracy so opportunely strangled in 
Chicago," and devotes a chapter to it. 

When the storm was rising there came from the Demo- 
cratic leaders in the " loyal" States as distinct asseverations 
of the wrongs the South was enduring, as full assurances 
that the South had the right to withdraw from the part- 
nership, as full denial of any possible right in the Federal 
Government to use coercion, as any Southern leader ever 
set forth; with further assm'ances that the Democrats 
of the North and the West would fight on the Southern 
side in any appeal to arms. 

The extreme Abolitionists also bitterly opposed the war. 
President Theodore Roosevelt's Cromwell says (p. 103) 
that at the close of the war " the Garrison .... or 
disunion Abolitionists .... had seen their cause 
triumph, not through, but in spite of, their efforts." And 
Gorham's Lije of Stanton (Vol. I., p. 163, et seq.) says, 
"The Republicans .... were divided into two 

classes, one, which desired separation, etc.," 

and (Vol. I., p. 193) tells of "a new element, headed by 
prominent Republican leaders like Greele}^ and Chase, 
who thought that a union of non-slaveholding States 
would be preferable to any attempt to maintain by force 
the Union with the slaveholding States." Observe how 
exactly these conclusions agreed with the conclusions to 
which the Southern leaders had come. 

A letter of Chase quoted in his Life by Warden (p. 363, 
et seq.) says: "It is precisely because they anticipate 
abolition as the result that the Garrison Abolitionists 
desire disunion." Schouler says of Garrison, Phillips and 
their inmiediate followers (History of the United States, 



126 The Real Lincoln. 

Vol. VI., p. 225), " They were the avowed Disunionists on the 
Northern side." .... Bui-gess says {The Civil War 
and the Constitution, Vol. I., p. 148), " The Abolitionist 
wing of the Republican party was never noted for strong 
unionism," and (p. 227) "down to our civil war the Aboli- 
tionist preached destruction of the Union." Leland says 
{Lincoln, p. 199) about the election of 1864: "The ultra 
abolition adherents of General Fremont were willing to 
see a pro-slavery President — McClellan — elected rather 
than Mr. Lincoln, so great was their hatred of him and 

emancipation As the election drew on, threats 

and rumors of revolution in the North were rife." Keifer 
says (his Slavery and Four Years of War, p. 172, et seq.), 
"There was also, though strangely inconsistent, a very 
considerable class of the early Abolitionists of the Gar- 
rison-Smith-Phillips school who did not support the war 
for the Union, but preferred the slaveholding States should 
secede." Channing says {Short History of the United 
States), "The Abolitionists welcomed the secession of the 
Slave States." 

In spite of the support of the war forced on the Demo- 
cracy, as above described, they made a steady struggle 
in the courts, in Congress, and in the State governments, 
to keep (lo\Mi the war to something like constitutional 
limits as far as possible, and to such conditions as might 
leave room for reconciliation in the future. Vallandig- 
ham's and Seymour's conduct, of wliich particulars will 
be given below, furnish examples, and General McClellan's 
is another example. For years no pains were spared to 
cry down General McClellan in vindication of Lincoln's 
dealings with him, but evidence of the truth has been too 
strong. Even Nicolay and Hay have to concede to Mc- 



The Real Lincoln. 127 

Clellan the very highest praise for pure patriotism, and the 
concessions have grown greater with each succeecUng his- 
torian till Rhodes, one of the ablest, deplores^ the fact that 
Lincoln could not see McClellan as we see him, and that 
Lincoln deferred the capture of Richmond and the downfall 
of the Confederacy for two years by removing McClellan 
from command of the army. Ropes passes hardly less 
severe censure on Lincoln^ for his dealings with McClellan, 
and Rhodes and Ropes are very hostile critics of McClellan.^ 

Tn this connection there are some imconscious betrayals 
of the real esthnate of Lincoln that was entertained by 
a number of his eminent eulogists. Eight of them^ 
have thought it worth while, if not necessary, to declare 
very expressly their belief that Lincoln did not purposely 
betray General McClellan and his army in the Seven-Days' 
battles before Richmond. McClellan, in his celebrated 
dispatch after his retreat, reproached vStanton with this 
atrocious crime, and so worded the dispatch that he im- 
puted the same guilt to Lincoln. 

A. K. McClure'* and Nicolay and Hay (Abraham Lin- 
coln, p. 441, et seq., and p. 451) deplore that McClellan 
should have believed Lincoln capable of it, both conceding 

^History of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 109 and p. lOfi, et seq. 

^Story of the Civil War, Part II., p. 132, et seq., p. 442, et seq., p. 473, et seq. 

^See John Fiske's Mississippi Valley in the Civil War, p. 148, et seq., and his 
quotation of censure of Lincoln to the same effect from the Count of Paris. See 
Ida Tarbell in McClure's Magazine for May, 1899, pp. 192 to 199. et seq., and see 
Henderson's Life of Stonewall Jackson, Vol. I., p. 307. 

'The eight are the following: A. K. McClure, see Lincoln and Men of the War 
Time, p. 102, p. 207, et seq.; Dr. Holland, see Abraham Lincoln, p. 753, et seq.; John 
Codlman Ropes, see Story of the Civil War, Part II., p. 116, p. 171, p. 2.30, p. 442, 
el seq., and p. 473, et seq.; Rhodes, see History of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 50, 
et seq.; Hon. George S. Boutwell, see Tributes from His Associates, p. 69; Sohouler. 
see History of the United States, p. 193, et seq.; Henderson, see Life of Stonewall 
Jackson, Vol. I., p. 499; Nicolay and Hay, see Abraham Lincoln, Vol. VI., p. 189, 
et seq., p. 441, et seq., and p. 451. 

^Lincoln and Men of the War Time, p. 102. 



128 The Real Lincoln. 

to McClellan the most exalted character, abihty, and pat- 
riotism. 

Of Lincoln's dealings with McClellan, A. K. McClure 
says,^ "Many charged, as did McClellan, that he had been 
with his army, deliberately betrayed by the Secretary of 
War, if not by Lincoln." A gentleman who commanded 
a division in the Union army in one of the great battles 
said to the author of this book, "If McClellan had taken 
Richmond, it would have been an end of the Republican 
party." 

Dr. Burgess, Professor of Political Science in the Colum- 
bia University, closes the treatment of the subject of 
General McClellan's military career with the following 
very curious and verj^ suggestive words i^*' ""Whether a 
crushing victory over the Confederates, ending at once 
the rebellion before slavery was destroyed, was wanted 
by all of those who composed the Washington Government, 
may well be suspected. And it is very nearly certain that 
there were some who would have preferred defeat to such 
a victory with McClellan in command. It was a dark, 
mysterious, uncanny thing, which the historian does not 
need to touch and prefers not to touch." 

Those who have labored most to discredit McClellan 
as a general have been obliged to concede to him some 
of the noblest qualities and highest gifts — perfect purity, 
honor and patriotism, unsurpassed skill in army organiza- 
tion, and the power to win and to keep, even when consigned 
by the President to disgrace, the ardent love and admira- 
tion of his soldiers. It is full time that some one who loves 



^Lincoln and Men of the War Time, pp. 208, 248; see, too, Nicolay and Hays' 
Abraham Lincoln, Vol. VI., p. 189, et seq. 

'^"The Civil War and the Constitution, published lately. 



The Real Lincoln. 129 

his good name, or some one who loves justice, should 
"touch" and reveal to the world "the dark, mysterious, 
uncanny thing" that Dr. Burgess points at. 

When Lincoln refused to hear at all, or to see the South- 
ern Connnissioners — Clement Clay and James P. Holcombe 
— unless they could show " written authority from Jefferson 
Davis" to make unconditional surrender, Greeley, who 
had procured their coming to negotiate a cessation of the 
war, protested against Lincoln's action as follows in a letter 
written him and published in the Tribune in July, 18B4 
(Holland's Abraham Lincoln, p. 478): "Our bleeding, 
l)ankrupt, almost dying country longs for peace, shudders 
at the jirospect of fresh conscriptions, of further wholesale 
devastation, and new rivers of human blood; and there 
is a widespread conviction that the Government and its 
supporters are not anxious for peace antl do not improve 
proffered opportunities to achieve it." Greeley further 
intimates (p. 482) the possibility of a Northern insurrec- 
tion. Charles A. Dana, Lincoln's Secretary of War, says, 
in his Recollections of the Civil War, that in April, 1862, 
Greeley "was for peace." Nicolay and Hay {Abraham 
Lincoln, Vol. L, pp. 184 to 200) describe the transaction 
above as "Horace Greeley's Peace Mission." The Life 
of Hamlin, p. 437, says Greeley called the above letter 
"the prayer of twenty millions of people." 

Gilmore {Personal Recollections of Lincoln, p. 231) 
shows the bitterest reprobation on his own part of the 
South and of its cause, but he records the following as 
"the almost unanimous feeling of the Northern people — 
of Radical Republicans as well as honest Democrats — 
chu'ing the winter of 1863 and the spring of 1864": "There 
9 



130 The Real Lincoln. 

must 1)6 some way to end this wretched business. Tell 
us what it is, and be it armistice, concession, compromise, 
anj^hing whatever, we will welcome it, so long as it ter- 
minates this suicidal war." 

Rhodes quotes {History of the United States) General 
Hooker's testimony to a committee of the House, as 
follows: "So anxious were parents, wives, brothers, and 
sisters to relieve their kindred, that they filled the express 
trains to the army with packages of citizen's clothing to 
assist them in escaping from the service." Hooker was tes- 
tifying as Commander in Chief of the Army of the Potomac. 

General U. S. Grant complains" "that General Lee's 
praise was sounded through the entire North after every 
action"; .... that he was "extolled by the entire 
press of the South after every engagement and by a portion 
of the press of the North with equal vehemence ; . . . 
that there were good and true officers who believed now 
that the Army of Northern Virginia was superior to the 
Army of the Potomac, man to man." James Russell 
Lowell wrote Motley, July ISth, 1864, "The apathy and 
discouragement throughout the country took the shape 
of a yearning for peace." General Ben. F. Butler pictures 
the public mind (Butler's Book, p. 576, et seq.) in such words 
as follow: .... "There being several parties who 
wanted a dictator, .... the property men of the 
country, who thought that the expenses of the war were 
so enormous that it should be inmiediately ended by 
negotiation, .... the New York Times, in an elab- 
orate editorial, proposed that George Law, an extensive 
manufacturer of New York, should be made dicta- 
tor." .... 



"PersoTKii Memoirs of U. S. Grant. New York, 1886, pp. 291, 292. 



The Real Lincoln. 131 

Rhodes says {History of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 
222) that "Greeley in his great journal (New York Tri- 
bune) advocated the mediation of a European power be- 
tween the North and the South"; that he corresponded 
with Vallandighani and the French Minister, Mercier, 
"setting forth that the people would welcome a foreign 
mediation that terminated the war"; and Rhodes adds, 
in a note, the following, from John Sherman's Letters, that 
Greeley said to Raymond, editor of New York Times: 
"I mean to carry out this policy and bring the war to a 
close. You'll see that I'll drive Lincoln to it"; which 
shows his opinion as to Lincoln's purposes. 

Rhodes says (History of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 
492), "When Lincoln visited Grant's army, June 21st, 
1864, .... gloom had settled down on the Army 
of the Potomac and was soon spread over the country. . . 
The entire army seemed demoralized." And Rhodes 
quotes Joseph Medill's letter to Colfax, "Sometimes I 
think nothing is left now but to fight for a boundary." 
Again Rhodes says (History of the United States, Vol. IV., 
p. 506), "July 19th, 1864, Halleck wrote Grant: 'We are 
now receiving one-half as many as we are discharging. 
Volunteering has virtually ceased' " ; and he says that about 
the middle of June, 1864, after Grant crossed the James 
river and was attacking Petersburg (p. 490, et seq.), "Re- 
inforcements were constantly sent to Grant, but they were 
for the most part mercenaries, many of whom were dis- 
eased, immoral, or cowardly. Such men were now in 
too large a proportion to insure efficient work." 

Rhodes says (History of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 236, 
et seq.), to justify the conscription act of Congress that 
was approved March 3rd, 1863, " volunteering had prac- 



132 The Real Lincoln. 

tically ceased," and he uses just the same words on p. 
3^^, adding "Only a pretty vigorous conscription could 
furnish the soldiers needed." 

Rhodes quotes (Vol. III., p. 486, ei seq.) a letter to Chase 
from Richard Smith, editor of the Cincinnati Gazette, which 
tells of "sober citizens .... trampUng under foot 
the portrait of the President; .... burning the 
President in effigy ; . . . . low murmurings favorable 
to a Western Confederacy; .... sudden check to 
enlistments; .... rejection of treasury notes by 
German citizens " 

Bancroft {Life of Seumrd, Vol. II., p. 407) says of the 
fall of Atlanta, that it was as unwelcome to the Demo- 
crats as an earthquake. 

The attitude of the Protestant Episcopal Church to- 
wards coercion and emancipation is illustrated by the 
following: Allen's Life of Phillips Brooks, says (Vol. I., 
p. 425), . . . . "Its membership was to a large ex- 
tent in the Democratic party, with whom the question 
of States' Rights was the chief political issue involved in the 
war." The Convention of Western New York, seeking 
exemption from draft for its clergy, found no better evi- 
dence of the Church's "loyalty" to urge than is in the 
following words :^^ " Appealing to our liturgy and practice 
in proof of our loyalty to our Government on the broad prin- 
ciple of Christian truth, praying constantly in our public 
worship for yourself" — they were addressing the Presi- 
dent — "and all in authority, and deprecating all sedition, 
privy conspiracy, and rebellion." Resolutions known as 
the "Brunot resolutions" were adopted by the General 

'^PTrtr of the Rebellion; Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 
Serial Number 125, p. 694. 



The Real Lincoln. 133 

Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1862. 
The New York Nation, of April 11th, 1891, says of them, 
"Mild as the resolutions were, they reached the highest 
point of loyalty that the Episcopal Church attained." 



CHAPTER XYIII. 

Despotism in Maryland. 

FAMILIARITY has made our ears very dull to facts 
that once would have set the country's heart aflame 
with patriotic wrath — of newspapers suppressed, a 
censored press, the Great Writ suspended. It may profit 
our old men to recall and oar young men to learn accurately 
how such things worked when applied m Baltimore and Mary- 
land. Dr. Holland says {Abraham Lincoln, p. 296) that in 
Maryland, ''out of 92,000 votes cast at the presidential 
election of 1860, only a little more than 2,000 had been cast 
for Mr. Lincoln The sympathies of four per- 
sons in every five were with the rebellion." 

General Butler sets forth that with the force organized 
already at Charleston, South Carolina, and the welcome that 
awaited them in Virginia and Maryland, success would have 
been easy for the Confederate Government at Montgomery, 
Alabama, and that (Butler's Book, p. 220) " the capture and 
occupation of Washington would have almost insured the 
Confederacy at once a place by recognition as a power 
among the nations of the earth" ; and that (pp. 19-22) Mary- 
land undoubtedly would have hastened to join the Con- 
federacy in such a contingency. That would have trans- 
ferred the line of battle from the Potomac to the Susque- 
hanna. Very probably Delaware would have in that event 
joined the Confederacy, or at least have remamed neutral, 
as her leading statesman, Senator Bayard, said that if the 
war could not be averted, and if his State preferred war to 

(134) 



The Real Lincoln. 135 

the peaceful separation of the States, he would cheerfully 
and gladly resign his seat in the Senate." 

Schouler {History of the United States, Vol. VI., p. 47, et 
seq.) describes how Gen. B. F. Butler, 13th May, 1861, 
"made a sudden entry into Baltimore" with his troops — 
proceeded to make "vindictive civil arrests," and was re- 
placed by General Scott — how Scott deputed " the high and 
delicate trust of suspending habeas corpus" to Cadwalader, 
a Pennsylvania General of Militia. He says, "In vain did 
Chief Justice Taney record his protest agamst such suspen- 
sion," and tells how General Banks, successor to Cadwalader, 
"pursuetl, by orders from Washington, the same stern mili- 
tary course." He broke up the Baltimore Police Board, 
whose designs were believed disloyal. He prevented the 
Legislature from meeting once more in September, by boldly 
arresting its disunion members and preventing a quorum.* 

The War of the Rebellion, Series 1, Vol. V., pp. 193-7, 
gives as follows orders of Cameron, Secretary of War, to 
Gen. N. P. Banks, September 11, 1801: "The passage of 
any act of secession by the Legislature of Maryland must be 
prevented. If necessary all or any part of the members 
must be arrested." Letters of Allen Pinkerton and of Gen- 
erals John E. Wool, John A. Dix, and N. P. Banks, report 
with enthusiasm the arrest, by use of soldiers from New 
York, and the close confinement of members of Congress, 
officers of the Baltimore city government, and members 
of the Legislature, among whom are named Henry May, 
Mayor George William Brown, S. Teakle Wallis, Henry M. 



'Russell's My Diary (p. 198) mentions the news that twenty-two "members 
of the Maryland Legislature have been seized by the Federal authorities." This 
is of date September 11, 1861. See Dunning's Essays on the Civil War, d'c, pp. 
19, 21, et seq. 



136 The Red Lincoln. 

Warfiekl, Charles H. Pitts, Ross Winans, Jolu] Hanson, 
Thomas, R. C. McCubbin, and F. Key Howard. 

Rhodes says (History of the United States, Vol. UL, p. 553, 
et seq.) of these same occurrences, " Under this order General 
Dix apprehended ten members-elect of the Legislature, the 
Mayor of Baltimore, a congressman, and two editors; and at 
Frederick City, the meeting-place of the Legislature, General 
Banks laid hold of nine secession members. These men were 
subsequently confined in Fort Lafayette, New York, and in 
Fort Warren, Boston, where other state-prisoners, arrested 
in Kentucky and Missouri, were also incarcerated. Rhodes 
concedes that these were "infractions of the Constitution," 
but tries to justify it all. Leland is more frank, both in 
clearly conceding it was Lincoln's doing and in justifying 
it, as follows (Abraham Lincoln, p. 132): "But he could be 
bold enough to sail closely enough to the law when justice 
demanded it. In September, 1861, the rebels in Maryland 
came near procuring the passage of an act of secession in 
the Legislature of that State. General McClellan was 
promptly ordered to prevent this by the arrest of the treason- 
able legislators, and the State was saved from civil war. 
Raymond also tells (Life and State Papers of Abraham Lin- 
coln, p. 4) of the arrest of nine members of the Maryland 
Legislature, and gives (p. 5) the President's statement about 
arrests and (pp. 7, 8, and 10) his suspension of the writ and 
his system of provost marshals that enabled him to reach 
every part of the country. 

Schouler, after presenting the facts in like manner as the 
rest, makes the following remarkable presentation of the 
consequences: "But the secession spirit of Maryland waned 
speedily, as the popular vote for Congress on the 13th June 



The Real Lincoln. 137 

first indicated, and the Star-Spangled-Banner State could 
not be seducetl by lyric or artful flattery from her national 
allegiance In November there was a newly- 
chosen Legislature, "loyal in its composition," and Gover- 
nor Hicks, "no longer wavering, announced with emphasis 
that Maryland had no sympathy with rebellion, but desired 
to do her full share in the duty of suppressing it." Schouler 
might have found a rhetorical designation for Maryland 
better suited to the occasion than the "Star-Spangled-Ban- 
ner State." The grandson of the author of the Star-Spangled 
Banner, Francis Key Howard, editor of the Exchange News- 
paper of Baltimore, had been arrested on the morning of 
the 13th of September, 1861, about 1 o'clock, by order of 
General Banks, and taken to Fort McHenry. He says 
{Fourteen Months in American Bastiles, p. 9): "When I 
looked out in the morning, I could not help being struck 
by an o(kl and not pleasant coincidence. On that day forty- 
seven years before my grandfather, Mr. F. S. Key, then 
prisoner on a British shij), had witnessed the bombardment 
of Fort McHenry. When on the following morning the 
hostile fleet drew oft", defeated, he wrote the song so long 
pojxilar througluRit the country, the Star-Spangled Banner. 
As I stood upon the very scene of that conflict, I could not 
but contrast my position with his, forty-seven years before. 
The flag which he had then so proudly hailed, I saw waving 
at the same place over the victims of as vulgar and brutal a 
despotism as modern times have witnessetl." 

Bancroft {Life of Wm. H. Seivard, Vol. XL, p. 276, et seq.) 
says, " It is extremely doubtful if Maryland could have been 
saved from secession and Washington from consequent 
seizure if the Mayor and Police Conmiissioners of Baltimore, 



138 The Real Lincoln. 

several members of the Legislatm-e, and many prominent 
citizens of both Maryland and Virgmia, had not been de- 
prived of their power to do harm." An earlier statement 
(p. 254) shows how they were deprived of it, as follows: 
After the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, " the Balti- 
more Marshal of Police, the Police Commissioners, and other 
men of prominence were seized and sent to the United States 
fort. Several members of the Legislature that were expect- 
ing to push through an ordinance of secession the next day 
were arrested in September, 1861, and treated like other 
political prisoners." The list would be long of the men most 
honored and trusted in Maryland wlio were kept in close, 
painful, and often fatal confinement mi til the next election- 
day was past. A special proclamation of the War Depart- 
ment was addressed to Marylanders, deploring the necessity 
of keepuig in prison so large a number of prominent citizens 
of the State, and expressing regret that "public policy" 
did not permit the charges on which they were arrested to 
be revealed to themselves or to their friends, with assurances 
that no private grudges have been allowed to have influence 
in the arrests, Mr. Charles A. Dana records,^ with evident 
complacency, the arrest m one day of ninety-seven of the 
first people in Baltimore and their imprisonment in Wash- 
ington, mostly in solitary confinement. 

General Jolin A. Dix writes Mr. Montgomery Blair, August 
31, 1861,^ that he hesitates to suppress the Exchange news- 
paper without authority from the commanding general, 
McClellan, and Blair forwards the letter to McClellan, with 
the endorsement: "I believe the Exchange, the Republican 

^■n his lately published Recollections of the Civil War, p. 236, et seq. 
■^War of the Rebellion; Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 
Series II., Vol. I., p. 590. 



The Real Lincoln. 139 

and the South should be suppressed. They are open dis- 
unionists. The Sun is in sympathy, but less diabolical." 
In October, 1861, General Dix writes the Secretary of 
War, Stanton, that he has " some doubt about the expediency 
of allowing Dr. A. C. Robinson to return to Baltimore until 
after the fall election," though he concedes that Dr. R. is 
"not a dangerous man like Wallis." He is "confident that 
Maryland will be a Union State in November," and he might 
well be confident, for between pages 536 and 738 of the volume 
above indicated are scores of letters of Generals Dix, N. P. 
Banks, Jolm E. Wool, and Winfield Scott, and of Secretary 
Seward, which show that a very great number of the most 
honored men in Maryland, mcluding a large part of the offi- 
cials of the State government and the Baltimore city govern- 
ment, were in prison, and that every man of the least import- 
ance who had left it in doubt whether he meant to support 
Mr. Lincoln hatl good reason to expect imprisonment. And 
these same officials concede, on pages 596, 648, 603, and 682, 
that the prisons were loathsome and dangerous to life, and 
so crowded that the prisoners had to be sent to Forts Dela- 
ware and Warren and Columbus and Monroe, and that these 
distant points were selected for the plainly avowed purpose 
of placing the prisoners where their captors would be less 
annoyed by the solicitations for their release by their friends. 
On page 586 of the same volume. General Banks formulates 
the policy very plainly: "While I confidently assure the 
Government that their detention is yet necessary, I do not 
think that a trial for any positive crime can result in their 
conviction." He recommends, however, on page 627, that 
Mr. Charles D. Huiks be released because he is dying, and 
"his death in prison would make an unpleasant impression." 



140 The Real Lincoln. 

The need to keep confined even those under slightest sus- 
picion is frequently urged, based on the fact that they can- 
not safely be allowed to reach home before the State elec- 
tion. 

It is curious to read, at page 622, the official report that 
as many as nine companies of Massachusetts soldiers were 
sent to arrest Mr. Charles Howard, and four companies of 
Pemisylvania soldiers to arrest William H. Gatchell, and seven 
companies of the same to arrest Messrs. John W. Davis and 
Charles D. Hinks. Marshal Kane was arrested by a like 
force in his bed at 3 o'clock in the morning, and " the police 
in the route were taken into custody to prevent an alarm." 
His imprisonment lasted seventeen months. 

Even to the most "loyal" Marylanders it must have been 
more or less trying to have these despotic functions executed 
in their midst by men from Vermont, Massachusetts, and 
Pennsylvania, and the absolute control of property and life 
in Maryland connnitted to men from a distance, like Generals 
Scott, Butler, Schenck, Banks, Wool, and McClellan, to 
ex-Governors of other States, like Seward and Chase. Gen- 
eral Dix refused to fm*nish arms asked by Mr. J. Crawford 
Neilson for protection of himself and neighbors in Harford 
county, expressing a doubt on which side the arms would 
be used, and adding: "Until a better feeling prevails the 
preservation of Maryland to the Union (and without her the 
Union could not exist) cannot safely be left to herself. I 
trust the time is not far distant when it may, and when it 
comes my occupation will be gone." See Series I., Vol. V., 
pp. 632-633. 

The satraps themselves sometimes gagged at the nauseous 
doses prescribed for them to swallow, as when General Wool 
explained to Secretary Stanton why he declined to furnish 



The Real Lincoln. 141 

troops called for by the Governor of Maryland to enforce 
the draft (Series III, Vol. 2, p. 509) : " If a State cannot 
enforce its own laws without United States soldiers, we may 

as well give up at once I do not want men who 

are forced into the service. We have now more treason in 
the army than we can well get along with." And he rather 
strangely adds: "This is no fiction." 

In a memorandum (Series II., Vol. I., p. 713) sent Sec- 
retary Seward for his guidance, by General Dix, it is set 
against the names of some of the prisoners that they "voted 
wrong" or "voted treasonably." Pendleton, Vallandig- 
ham, Voorhees, and many others were "voting treasonably" 
in Congress at this very time; but when the Administration 
could spare time from Maryland to attend to Ohio and In- 
diana, these gentlemen were gotten out of tlie way by banish- 
ment and other methods new in America. 

On page 712 of Series II., Vol. I., I find that General Dix, 
still providing against election-day, writes: "Dr. A. A. 
Lynch, Senator, might, I think, be released, on condition 
that he should resign his place in the Senate and take the 
oath. The Union men have a majority in the Senate, but 
it is now considered desirable to have three more." But 
he writes, on page 727, to Secretary Seward : " I do not think 
Mr. T. Parkin Scott should be released, even if he should 
agree to take the oath of allegiance. His presence here 
(in Baltimore) would be very distasteful to the friends of 
the Union, whose feelings should be respected." This ten- 
der consideration for the feelings of certain persons is further 
illustrated by a letter (p. 682) of Simon Cameron, then Sec- 
retary of War: "My Dear Seward, — In order to gratify 
Johnson, I say that the release of Ross Winans will not 
pain me." No humble subordinates are acting. We find 



142 T}ie Real Lincoln. 

the order of Simon Cameron himself, as Secretary of War, 
to General Banks (p. 678) : " The passage of any act of seces- 
sion by the Legislature of Maryland must be prevented. 
If necessary all or any part of the members must be arrested." 
And the commander-in-chief, General McClellan, orders 
General Banks, page 605, "to send detachments of a suffi- 
cient nimiber of men to the different points in N'^our vicinity 
where the elections are to be held." 

Alter we have learned that the State election was beyond 
question held imder certain conditions as above described, 
it is curious to read in a " draft of a proclamation by the Presi- 
dent of the United States fomid among the files of the State 
Department" (Series II, Vol. I., p. 617) that the reason 
assigned in it by Mr. Lincoln for releasing all the political 
prisoners is "the recent declaration of the people of Mary- 
land of their adhesion to the Union so distinctly made in 
their recent election." 

The minute scale of the supervision over Maryland thought 
necessary by men so conspicuous as Montgomery Blair and 
the general commanding, McClellan, is indicated by the 
folloA\'ing letter of Blair to McClellan, September, 1861,^ 
"No secession flag has to the knowledge of the police been 
exhibited in Baltimore for many weeks, except a small 
paper flag displayed by a child at an upper window. It was 
inmiediately removed by them." The large scale, too, on 
which Maryland was thought to need restramt as late as 
June 16, 1862, is indicated'^ when General Wool gives to the 
Secretary of War as one of the reasons why " a reserve corps, 
if practicable, of 50,000 men should be stationed between 
Washington and Baltmiore, that they would give protection 

*War of the Rebellion; Official Reports of Union and Confederate Armies, Series 
II., Vol. I., p. 591, or 511. 

^Series I., Vol. XII.,'^Part II., p. 397. 



The Real Lincoln. 143 

and confitlence to the loyal men of both these cities," and 
the same is urged again on the same by the same on page 424. 
Burgess shows (The Civil War and the Constitution, Vol. I., 
j). 204) his bitter partisanship for North agahist South and 
his blind injustice to Maryland, as follows: Maryland "had 
played a disgraceful part, but it had served the national 
interest by rousing the anger of the North to the fighting 
point." 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Despotism in Kentucky. 

BURGESS says (The Civil War and the Constitution, 
Vol. I., p. 191,) "It was the attitude of Kentucky, 
however, which, next to that of Maryland, gave Mr. 
Lincoln the greatest concern." 

Ida Tarbell says : " Moreover, he feared that the least 
interference with slavery would drive from him those 
States lying between the North and the South." Hap- 
good quotes {Lincoln, p. 245) from a confidential letter 
of Lincoln's to his old friend Browning, dated September 
22nd, 1862, his words to this point. He says about his 
forbidding the execution of Fremont's emancipation pro- 
clamation, " The Kentucky Legislature would not budge — 
would be turned against us. I think to lose Kentucky 
is nearly the same as to lose the whole game. Kentucky 
gone, we cannot hold Missouri, nor, I think, Maryland. 
These all gone, and the job on our hands is too large for 
us." Ropes says {Story of the Civil War, Part IL, p. 41), 
"The people of Kentucky were, as we know, very evenly 
divided in sentiment," and Rhodes says {History of the 
United States, Vol. III., p. 391): "The course of public 
opinion was very like that of Virginia up to the parting 
of their ways; and as most of the leaders of ability were 
with the South, it is easy to sec that a little change of 
circumstances, a little alteration of the direction of feeling, 
might in the end have impelled Kentucky to take up arms 
for the Confederacy instead of for the Union. Lincoln's 
own knowledge of the division of mind in Kentucky is 

(144) 



The Real Lincoln. 145 

shown even better than above by the following: Leslie 
F. Pern^, late of the War Record's Board of Publication, 
Washington, D. C, shows^ that Lincoln, July 9th, 1861, 
referred the question whether Jesse Bagley should be 
allowed to raise a Kentucky regiment by a letter addressed 
to "Gentlemen of the Kentucky Delegation who are for 
ic/the Union." Fo#lke says {Life of Morton, Vol. I., p. 
133, et seq.) that Governor Bramlette replied in response to 
Lincoln's call for soldiers, " Kentucky will furnish no troops 
for the wicked purpose of subduing her Southern Sisters," 
that he convened the Legislature and got their approval 
of his answer by a vote of eighty-nine to four." The fol- 
lowing document pictures vividly the state of things in 
Kentucky. Major Sidell, Acting Assistant Provost Marshal- 
Gener.al, writes^ on 13th March, 1864, from Louisville, 
Kentucky, to Col. Fry, Provost Marshal-General in Wash- 
ington, reporting that Colonel Walford, of the First Ken- 
tucky Cavalr}'', has, in speeches at Lexington and Dan- 
ville, "denounced the President and his Administration, 
and even went so far as to counsel forcible resistance to 
the enrollment of negroes under the present act of Con- 
gress. Governor Bramlette was on the stage at the time 
and gave no evidence of dissent then or subsequently. 
. . . . Public opinion grows very fast. Unfortunately 
there is no really loyal paper in the State,^ so that no 
means exists to set forth loyal views." On pp. 288-9 
the same reports to the same, "The presence of guerillas 
and a sympathizing population and absence of mounted 
force create great difficulty in the First District. In four 

^Lippincott' s Maoazine for February, 1902, pp. 205, 209. 

'^War of the Rebellion; Olficial Reports of the Union and Cmijedcrate Armies, 
Serial Number 125, p. 174, p. 175. 

^What, evidence could be more conclusive of the attitude of Kentucky. 

10 



146 The Real Lincoln. 

counties negroes cannot be enrolled, and their enrollment 
in other counties is incomplete. The seven counties west 
of the Tennessee river .... are the worst." Ken- 
tucky must have been disloyal indeed when the approach 
of General Morgan's little force could cause such a report 
as the following, found in the above-named:^ Brigadier- 
General J. T. Boyle writes Secretary Stanton, July 19th, 
1862, from his headquarters at Louisville, Kentucky, " The 
State is in imminent danger of being overrun by Morgan 
and those joining him. If he should succeetl in a fight with 
our forces there is danger of the uprising of the traitors 
in our midst There is a concerted plan be- 
tween the traitors at home and the rebels in arms. Mor- 
gan's force has increased. It is estimated at from 2,500 
to 3,500. I do not believe it is so large." A letter from 
the same to the same, on the next page, says, " His whole 

force does not exceed 1,200, if that There 

are bands of guerillas in Henderson, Davis, and Webster 
counties." And yet another, on page 749, says, "They 
have bands hi many parts of this State. Many of the 
best men in the State believe there is preparation for a 
general uprising. I believe there is such purpose and 
plans." 

John Brough, Governor of Ohio, wrote, June 9th, 1864, 
to Secretary Stanton,^ " External raids and internal trouble 
in Indiana and Illinois promise a warm summer's work." 
The same wrote the same,® "You must change policy in 
Kentucky Nothing but a vigorous applica- 
tion of Maryland policy will do in Kentucky." 

^Series I., Vol. XVI., p. 747. 

^War of the Rebellion; Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 
Serial Number 125. 

*Same volume, p. 429, June 11, 1864. 



CHAPTER XX. 

Despotism in Indiana. 

k./ TpOWLKE says (Life of Morton, Vol. I., p. 35), "The 
J- feelings of the people of Indiana were not unfriendly 
to the South, nor to her 'peculiar institution.' The 
State was considered 'one of the outlying provinces 
of the empire of slavery.' In 1851 a new Constitution 
had been submitted to the people, forbidding negroes to 
come into the State and punishing those who employed 
then>. It was ratified by a popular majority of nearly 
ninety thousand. Morton had voted for it. Moreover 
he had always been opposed to Abolitionists." 
It/ Foi^lke quotes (p. 297) Harrison H. Dodd, Grand Com- 
mander of the Sons of Liberty in Indiana, addressing a 
Democratic meeting in Hendricks county and saying that 
"the real cause of the war was the breach of faith by 
the North in not adhering to the original compact of the 
States"; .... that "in twenty-three States we 
had governments assisting the tyrants and usurpers at 
Washington to carry on a military depotism." At page 
♦^y^79 Fo-yl'lke says, "When the news came that Fort Sumter 
had been fired on and the North was one blaze of patriotism, 
there were several centres of disaffection in Indiana where 
sentiments favorable to the South were freely spoken." 
Page 381 shows that the order of the Golden Circle* had 
been introduced into the Federal camps at Indianapolis." 
At p. 98, et seq., of Vol. I., Fo^lke says, ''A meeting of 
citizens in Cannelton, in Perry county, on the Ohio, re- 

'An organization of which see more hereafter. 

(147) 



148 The Real Lincoln. 

solved that, .... if a line was to be drawn between 
the sections, it must be drawn north of Cannelton." 
ToVflke quotes (Vol. I., p. 262, et seq.) the following denun- 
ciation of Governor Morton, published in the Sentinel news- 
paper by John C. Walker, a prominent official just elected for 
special duties by the Legislature : " The disposition mani- 
fested by the party in power to fasten a despotism upon 
this county by the destruction of the ballot-box may yet 
compel a people naturally forbearing and tolerant to rise 
in their might and teach our modern Neros and Caligulas 
that they cannot be sustained." Foj^lke goes on (Vol. 
I., p. 175), "But Democratic County Conventions still 
criticised the Administration and opposed the war. The 
convention at Rushville, on December 28th, 1861, . . . 
declared that the Union could not be preserved by the 
exercise of coercive power." And Fowlke shows (Vol. I., 
p. 175, et seq.) that the action of the Democratic State Con- 
vention was dead against the Administration, the war, and 
emancipation, and quotes (Vol. I., p. 208) a letter of 
Governor Morton to Lincoln, of October 27th, 1862, as 
follows: "The Democratic politicians of Ohio, Indiana, 
and Illinois assume that the rebellion will not be crushed." 
And the letter goes on to say that they urge (p. 209) that 
" their interests are antagonistic to New- England's and 
in harmony with those of the South, .... that 
reasonable terms of settlement offered by the South and 
refused had brought on the war." Governor Morton 
wrote Lincoln, October 7th, 1862 (Vol. I., p. 197), "An- 
other three months like the last six and we are lost — lost." 

Fowlke says (p. 199), "The draft was 

conducted without disturbance, except at Hartford City, 
in Blackford county, where the draft-box was destroyed 



The Real Lincoln. 149 

and the draft was stopped, but on the third day after it 
was completed." Fo)vlke does not say by what force, 
but goes on (Vol. I., p. 205, et seq.): "The outcome of 
the election was the choice of Democratic State officers 
and of a Democratic Legislature. In a Democratic jubilee 
at Cambridge City, November loth, where Vallandigham, 
Hendricks, Jason B. Brown, H. H. Dodd, Geo. H. Pendle- 
ton, and others spoke, .... cheers for Jeff Davis 
and curses for Abolitionists were heard." And he says 
(p. 382), "After the election of 1862 the Democratic 
majorities in both Houses of the General Assembly were 
bitterly hostile to the Administration and to the further 
prosecution of the war." 

A note on p. 382 tells of sixteen meetings held within two 
months to advocate peace. The men who thus boldly 
led this opposition to Lincoln and all his aims, like Gover- 
nor Seymour, in New York, were not turned down or 
blamed for it by their constituency when the war was 
over, for ^iorton said in a speech in the Senate, 20th June, 
1866 (Vol. I., p. 270), "The leaders who are now managing 
the Democratic party in the State are the men who, at 
the regular session of the Legislature in 1861, declared that 
if an army went from Indiana to assist in putting down 
the then approaching rebellion, it must first pass over 
their dead bodies." Fo)Vlke goes on (Vol. I., p. 213) to 
describe what he calls "The Peace Legislature" of In- 
diana, as follows: "The political outlook was gloomy. 
. . . . Peace at any price, recognition of Southern in- 
dependence, the formation of a Northwestern Confederacy, 
had their advocacy." And he describes (Vol. I., p. 220) 
a demonstration held January 14th, in Shelby county, 
at which " resolutions were adopted recommending a cessa- 



150 The Real Lincoln. 

tion of hostilities, opposing the conscription act, and 
declaring that soldiers had been induced to enter the army 
by the false representation that the war was waged solely 
to maintain the Constitution and restore the Union." 
FoWlke quotes (Vol., I., p., 243, et seq.) from a speech of 
Governor Morton in January his statement that General 
Grant had disbanded the 109th Illinois regiment for dis- 
loyalty, its officers being sworn members of a disloyal 
society, one of the purposes of which was to encourage 
desertion and demoralize the army. Morton says that 
the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th regiments had been similarly 
demoralized, and an artillery company had been destroyed, 
by this agency. He records (p. 250) that Vallandigham, 
who had been required to leave the country on account 
of his disloyal utterances, had become the idol of the 
peace Democrats, and quotes (p. 302) from a speech of 
D. H. Corrick, to the Democratic Convention, received 
with applause, "Nine hundred and ninety-nine men out 
of every thousand whom I represent breathe no other 
prayer than to have an end of this hellish war. When 
news of our victories comes, there is no rejoicing. When 
news of our defeat comes, there is no sorrow." Fo^lke u.^ 
says plainly (Vol. I., p. 99) that the action of the State 
Convention of the Democratic party "looked like revolu- 
tion in the bosom of the North." Most significantly the 
meetings held for such purposes were called " Union meet- 
ings." To quote Fo-^f^lke's words (p. 99), "Union meet- 
ings, as they were called, were held everywhere throughout 
the State, the object being to propose some concessions 
which should bring the South back to the Union." And 
Morton telegraphed (p. 183) to the President, October 
21st, "In the Northwest distrust and despair are seizing 



The Real Lincoln. 151 

on the hearts of the people." At what Fotrlke calls, as --^y 
above explained, ''a Union meeting," of 18th June, Morton 
said that "the traitors .... would array the 

Northwest against New England There were 

many persons in Indiana who still cherished this wild and 
wicked dream." 

Rhodes quotes {History of the United States, Vol. IV., 
p. 223) the following telegram from Governor Morton 
to the vSecretary of War, " I am advised that it is con- 
templated when the Legislature meets in this State to pass 
a joint resolution acknowledging the Southern Confederacy, 
and urging the States of the Northwest to dissolve all 
constitutional relations with the New England States. 
The same thing is on foot in Illinois." 

In Illinois resolutions praying for an armistice, and 
recommending a convention of all the States to agree 
upon some adjustment of the trouble between them, passed 
the House, but failed by a few votes to obtain considera- 
tion in the Senate. Then Rhodes gives a letter of Morton 
to Stanton, taken, he says, "from the War Department 
archives," as follows, dated January 4th, 1863: "It has 
been discovered within the past two weeks that the treason- 
able political secret organization having for its object 
the withdrawal of the Northwestern States from the 
Union, which exists in every part of this State, has ob- 
tained a foothold in the military camps in this city." 
The War of the Rebellion Official Records of Union and 
Confederate Armies, Serial No. 124, |). 19, gives the fol- 
lowing letter of Colonel Carrington of the ISth U. S. In- 
fantry to General Thomas, Adjutant-General United States 
army, Washington, from Headquarters Mustering and 
Disbursing Service, State of Indiana, Indianapolis, January 



152 The Real Lincoln. 

24th, 1863: "Nearly 2,600 deserters and stragglers have 
been arrested within a very few weeks; generally it requires 
an armed detail. Most of the deserters, true to the oath 
of the order (Knights of the Golden Circle), desert with 
their arms, luid in one case seventeen fortified themselves 
in a log cabin with outside paling and ditch for protection, 
and were maintained by their neighbors." On p. 75 the 
same writes to the same, March 19th, 1863: "Matters 
assume grave import. Two hundred mounted armed 
men in Rush county have to-day resisted arrest of deserters. 
Have sent one hundred infantry by special train to arrest 
deserters and ringleaders. Southern Indiana is ripe for 
revolution." 

The War of the Rebellion, Serial No. 125, p. 529, gives 
a letter from E. W. Thompson, Captain and Provost 
Marshal at Terre Haute, Indiana, July 20th, 1864, to 
Provost-Marshal-General Fry that reports fighting in Sulli- 
van county between "butternuts" and soldiers, with one 
killed and one wounded. "The result is that there are 
large numbers of men riding about over the country 
armed and some of them shouting for Vallandigham and 
Jeff Davis, and professing to be in search of soldiers. 
There have been more than two hundred together at one 
time . . . We have a terrible state of things; such 
as excites a reasonable apprehension of resistance to the 
draft." . . . 

Fowlke's claim for Morton is that (p. 254, et sea.) he 
kept Indiana from becoming "an ally of the Confederacy"; 
that he acted (p. 259) despite the decisions of the Supreme 
Court. He says that when Morton told Stanton that 
Lincoln said he could find no law for supporting him 
with money, Stanton answered, " By God, I will find a law." 



The Real Lincoln. 153 

U Fowlke {Life of Morton, Vol. I, p. 115) concedes that 
even in the ebullition on the call to arms only fear kept 
down the feeling for the South in Indiana, and that the 
Legislature of the 13th January (p. 99) .... "re- 
peated in its small way the follies and weaknesses of 
Congress." Their follies and weaknesses seem to mean 
the resistance of each to the Executive, for finally, FoWlke 
says (Vol. I., p. 98), "public opinion in Indiana was an 
epitome of public sentiment in the Nation at large" — a 
very comprehensive concession. 

Fo'^lke writes as late as 1899, and in eulogy, not cen- 
sure of Morton. He heads a chapter {Life of Governor 
Morto?i, Chapter XXII.): "I am the State," and begins, 
"Morton accomplished what had never before been at- 
tempted in American history. For two years he carried 
on the government of a great State solely by his own per- 
sonal energy, raising money without taxation on his own 
responsibility and distributing it through bureaus orga- 
nized by himself." French says {Life of Morton, p. 423) 
that at the commencement of the year 1863 .... 
the secret enemies of the Government .... had 
succeeded in the election of an Indiana Legislature which 
"was principally composed of men sworn to oppose to 
the bitter end the prosecution of the war, with the pur- 
pose of encouraging the enemies of American liberty in 
their work of rebellion and destruction." Nicolay and 
Ilay {Abraham Lincoln, Vol. VIII., p. 8, et seq.) confirm 
the above account of Indiana, and say that but for Gover- 
nor Morton the Indiana Legislature would have recog- 
nized the Confederacy and "dissolved the federal relation 
with the United States." 



154 The Real Lincoln. 

In "Life and Services of 0. P. Morton,'' on p. 43 — pub- 
lished by the Indiana RepubUcan Committee — we find the 
following : '' During the winter of 1862 and the summer 
of 1863 the disloyal sentiment (in Indiana) was very 
active. County and local meetings w^ere held in many 
parts of the State, which declared the war cruel and un- 
necessary, denounced President Lincoln as a tyrant and 
usurper, Union soldiers as Lincoln's hirelings, etc." . . . 
In the fall of 1862 the Democrats carried the State, elect- 
ting a Democratic Legislature. It was thoroughly disloyal, 
the Democrats having a majority of six in the Senate 
and twenty-four in the House. The first thing they did 
was to decline to receive Governor Morton's message and 
to pass a joint resolution tendering thanks to Governor 
Seymour of New York for the exalted and patriotic senti- 
ments contained in his recent message They 

adopted resolutions denouncing arbitrary arrests, and 
declared that Indiana would not voluntarily contribute 
another man or another dollar to be used for such wicked, 
inhuman, and unholy purposes as the prosecution of the 
war. They instructed the Senators and requested the 
Representatives in Congress from Indiana to take meas- 
ures to suspend hostilities, etc. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Attitude of Ohio and Illinois. 

YALLANDIGHAM'S career gives much light on the 
attitude of Ohio. Rhodes gives (History of the 
United States, Vol. IV., p. 226, et seq.) extracts from 
his speech in Congress, 14th January, 1863, with bitter 
censure of it, as follows: " The war for the Union is on your 
hands, a most bloody and costly faihu-e. The President 

confessed it on the 22nd September War for 

the Union was abandonetl; war for the Negro openly 
began I trust I am not 'discouraging enlist- 
ments. ' If I am, then first arrest Lincoln and Stanton and 

Halleck But can you draft again? .... 

Ask Massachusetts Ask not Ohio, nor the 

Northwest. She thought you were in earnest and gave 

you all, all — more than you demanded But 

ought this war to continue? I answer, No — not a day, not 
an hour. "What then? Shall we separate? Again I an- 
swer. No, no, no ! What then? .... Stop fighting. 
Make an armistice. Accept at once friendly foreign media- 
tion and begin the work of reunion, we shall yet escape." 

After this daring defiance of Lincoln in 

his capita! city, A^allandigham returned to meet in his 
home the acclaim of his party. 

John A. Logan records (The Great Conspiracy, p. 557) 
a gathering at Springfield, Illinois (Lincoln's home), of 
nearly one hundred thousantl VaUandigham, Anti-War, 
Peace, Democrats, which utterly rei)udiated the war. 
See, also, page 559, ct seq. 

(155) 



156 The Real Lincoln. 

General Burnside was in command of the three States, 
Ohio, Indiana, and Ilhnois, exchi(hng from circulation 
such papers as the New York Herald; suppressing 
the Chicago Times, and this in a region — as Rhodes 
describes it (Vol. IV., p. 252) — " where there was no 
war — where the courts were open — where the people 
were living under the American Constitution and English 
law." Rhodes says (p. 246, et seq.) that Burnside began 
"literally to breathe out threat enings, .... de- 
nouncing the penalty of death for certain offenses." 

The story is too long as Rhodes tells it (Vol. IV., p. 
247:) Two of Burnside's captains, in citizen's clothes,* 
were sent to hear \\allandigham's speech at Mount Vernon, 
Ohio. The officers broke into his house at 2 A. M., and 
took him before a military commission for trial. The 
whole mode of procedure and the sentence to "close con- 
finement during the continuance of the war" provoked 
such wide and bitter criticism and resentment that Lin- 
coln comnmted the sentence to banishment — a penalty 
not before known to the country, and " not for deeds done, 
but for words spoken," to use the language in which it 
was denounced by John Sherman, and these were words 
that had been spoken in public debate and received with 
wild applause by thousands of his constituents.^ 

Dr. Holland tells, too, of the bitter reprobation this 
provoked in New York. Nicolay and Hay tell {Abraham 
Lincoln, Vol. VII., p. 328) verj'- nearly the same story 
about Vallandigham and the resentment in New York 
(p. 341) at Lincoln's treatment of Vallandigham. Rhodes 

^Officers in the service of the United States very rarely laid aside their uniform 
as is so constantly done now. 

2John Sherman's Recollections, Vol. I., o. 323, and Holland's Abraham Lin- 
coln, p. 471, ct seq. 



The Real Lincoln. 157 

labors to defend the banishment and two long papers 
issued by Lincoln in defense of his course, but is reduced 
to the strait of reciting as one argument in justification of 
the conviction that "it was known no jury would convict." 
But at last he has to say (p. 248, et seq.), " From the begin- 
ning to the end of these proceechngs law and justice were 
set at naught"; .... that the "President should 
have rescinded the sentence and released Vallandigham" ; 
. . . . that "we may wish that the occasion had 
not arisen"; .... that (p. 251) "a large portion 
of the Republican press of the East condemned Vallan- 
digham's arrest and the tribunal before which he was 
arraigned." He quotes heavy censure of it by Justice 
David Davis, Lincoln's intimate friend, recorded in the 
Milligan case, ending his warning of the danger of such a 
precedent with the words, " The dangers to human liberty 
are frightful to contemplate."' 

Rhodes says (Vol. IV., p. 252) that "the nomination 
for Governor now came to Vallandigham spontaneously 
and with almost the unanimous voice of an earnest and 
enthusiastic convention"; .... that "the issue 
had come to be Vallandigham or Lincoln"; and Rhodes 
quotes John Sherman as follows : " The canvass in Ohio is 
substantially between the Government and the Rebellion." 
Rhodes says (p. 412), "Lincoln was termed a usurper 
and a despot"; .... and (p. 414) . . . . 
" the Vallandigham meetings were such impressive out- 
pourings of the people," .... while .... 
"the Republican meetings fell short probably in numbers 

'N. B. — What a political opponent, Col. A. K. McClure, says of Vallandig- 
ham in his Recollections of Half a Century, copyright, 1902, p. 231; "There was 
not a single blemish on his public or private life until he became involved — in- 
sensibly involved — in violent hostility to the Government." 



158 The Real Lincoln. 

of those who gathered out of warm sympathy with the 
cause of Vallanchgham." 

To many it is a new and strange idea that there was any 
strong leaning to the South in Ohio, but a book notice in 
the New York World of June 15th, 1901, refers, as to a 
familar theme, to "the story of Cincinnati in the time of 
those September days when the city was the centre of 
a Confederate plot, participated in by outsiders and in- 
siders; .... that by the dividing line of the causes 
brother is set against brother." The evidence of a loyal 
Governor seems conclusive. 

In The War of the Rebellion, Serial No. 125, p. 599, John 
Brough, Governor of Ohio, writes Secretary Stanton, 
August 9, 1864, " Recruiting progresses slowly. There 
will be a heavy draft, and strong organizations are making 
to resist its enforcement. There is no sensational alarm 
in this. Force, and a good deal of it, will be required 

to overawe the resistance party What is 

your view in regard to it? ... . There must be 
not less than 10,000 to 15,000 men under arms in Ohio 
in September if the draft is to be enforced." We have, 
besides, the testimony of General Grant (Personal Memoir, 
p. 24 and p. 35): "Georgetown, .... county- 
seat of Brown county, .... is, and has been from 
its earliest existence, a Democratic town. There was 
probably no time during the rebellion when, if the oppor- 
t\mity could have been afforded, it would not have voted 
for Jefferson Davis for President of the United States over 
Mr. Lincoln or any other representative of his party, un- 
less it was just after Morgan's raid There 

were (p. 36) churches in that part of Ohio where treason 
was regularly preached, and where, to secure membership. 



The Real Lincoln. 159 

hostility to the Government, to the war, and to the libera- 
tion of slaves, was far more essential than a belief in the 
authenticity or credibility of the Bible." 

Part of what has been shown about the attitude of In- 
diana and Ohio was shown to be true about Illinois, too. 
Dr. Holland says {Abraham Lincoln, p. 67) that in 1830 
the " prevailing sentiment " of Illinois was "in favor of 
slavery." Nicolay and Hay quote {Abraham Lincoln, 
Vol. I., pp. 140 and 141) pro-slavery action of the Legis- 
lature of Illinois, 3rd March, 1837, saying that Congress 
had no power to interfere with slavery except in the 
District, and not there unless at the request of the people 
of the District. Nicolay and Hay show at some length 
{\o\. I., p. 143, et seq.) a very nearly successful effort 
made by the Illinois Legislature in 1822-3 "to open the 
State to slavery," and say that "the apologists of slavery, 
beaten in the canvass, were more successful in the field 
of public opinion. In the reaction which succeeded the 
triumph of the anti-slavery party it seemed as if there 
had never been any anti-slavery sentiment." 

Fojwdke gives {Life of Oliver P. Morton, Vol. I., p. 229 
and p. 230) numerous resolutions offered and some resolu- 
tions passed, in the Illinois General Assembly, in January, 
1863, against emancipation .... and against the 
conscription. Ida Tarbell says^ that "among the things 
that told Lincoln the seriousness of the situation, before 
he took his seat, .... was the averted faces of 
his townsmen of Southern sympathies." 

It has been shown how Chicago resented and success- 
fully resisted the suppression of the Chicoj/o Times, a paper 
about which Rhodes quotes (Vol. IV., p. 253, note) from 

*McClure'8 Magazine for 1899, p. 107. 



160 The Real Lincoln. 

a Provost Marshal's report, " It would not have needed to 
change its course an atom if its place of publication had 
been Richmond or Charleston instead of Chicago." 

Governor Yates, of Illinois, wrote Secretary Stanton,^ 
" I have the best reasons for believing that a draft if made 
will be resisted in this State," and asks arms for 10,000 
infantry and five batteries of artillery to put it down. 
And again the same wrote the same (Serial No. 125, 
p. 55S), "I must have a district commander for this State. 
A large portion of my time is consumed by appeals to put 
dowm disloyal desperadoes, against whom the courts have 
no protection. Numbers of men are now here driven from 
their homes by an armed force of 150 men in Fayette 
county." Aiid a third time the same wires the same, 
March 2nd, 1864 (Serial No. 148), "Insurrection in Edgar 
county, Illinois. Union men on one side. Copperheads 
on the other. They have had two battles; several killed. 
Please order .... two companies .... to 
put down the disturbance." .... 

D. L. Phillips, United State Marshal, writes Secretary 
Seward, February 22nd, 1862 (Series II., Vol. II., p. 241) : 
. . . . "I think that the disloyal in our State feel 
that they are completely at my mercy unless"; .... 

and again, It is now well understood that 

nothing but the restraining fear of the marshal's office has 
kept from deeds of violence a great many men in the Ohio 
and Wabash River counties of Illinois. 



sPFor of the Rebellion, Serial No. 124, p. 627, August 5, 1863. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Attitude of Pennsylvania and New York. 

JOHN A. LOGAN {The Great Conspiracy, p. 108, note) 
describes "in Philadelphia, December 13th, 1860, a 
great meeting held at the call of the Mayor in Independ- 
ence Square," .... which offered the most com- 
plete submission to the demands of the South. Greeley 
quotes (American Convict, Vol. I., p. 428) from the Phila- 
delphia Pennsylvanian, commenting on Lincoln's Inaugural, 
as follows: "Let the Border States submit ignominiously 
to the abolition rule of this Lincoln Administration if 
they like, but don't let the miserable submissionists pre- 
tend to be deceived. Make any cowardly excuse but 
this." Allen's Life, &c., of Phillips Brooks tells (Vol. I., 
p. 448) of Philadelphia's .... "avowed hostility 
towards the Government in its prosecution of the war. 
That such sentiments towards Lincoln and his Administra- 
tion did exist in Philadelphia is evident, but it should also 
be said that the same apathy or hostility might be found 
in the Northern cities, in New York and in Boston." On 
the same page Brooks writes, in a letter, deploring that he 
found in Jersey an opposition that "made the State dis- 
graceful." A deliberate refusal of a large mass of orga- 
nized soldiers to advance, in the midst of the war, is as 
conclusive proof of their "disloyalty" as can be conceived, 
yet four thousand Pennsylvanians took that desperate 
stand, as the following shows: A letter^ of September 

^War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate 
Armies, Series I., Vol. XIX., Part 11, p. 329,) of September 18, 1862. 
11 ( 161 ) 



162 The Real Lincoln. 

18th, 1862, from Hagerstown to Major-Geiieral H. W. 
Halleck, General in Chief, signed by I. Vogdes, Major, 
says, "A kirge portion of the Pennsylvania Militia, now 
here, have declined to move forward as requested by 

General McClellan About 2,500 have gone, 

but the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, and 15th, numbering 
about 800 each, decline to proceed. The 14th has not 
finally decided whether to go or not. Governor Curtin 
has just arrived, and may induce the troops to advance." 
In the same volume, p. 629, is shown the daring resist- 
ance of the Pennsylvanians to the draft. Major-General 
D. N. Couch writes Provost-Marshal-General J. B. Fry, 
August 5th, 1863, "I have two regiments and a battery 
at East Pottsville and Scranton and vicinity. My idea 
is that the enrollment can be completed with present 
force. I think it should be increased when the drafted 
men are taken." In the same volume, at pp. 321, 324, and 
325, are reports of Provost Marshals to their Chief in 
Washington of forcible resistance to the draft, . . . and 
of all refusing to be enrollers, in the year 1863. In the 
same great Record (Series III., Vol. II., p. 735) the Adju- 
tant-General of Pennsylvania wrote Secretary Stanton: 
" Of the draft in this State about one-fourth has not been 
delivered, and the State is powerless to deliver them. 
. . . . Of those delivered .... very many are 
totally unfit for service." The Adjutant-General would 
seem final authority in the matter, and it must have been 
the will of the people of the State that made the State " pow- 
erless." But see further confirmation. Capt. Richard I. 
Dodge, Acting Assistant Provost Marshal General, writes 
(Serial No. 125) to General Fry, Provost Marshal General, 
August 10th, 1864: ''In several counties of the Western 



The Real Lincoln. 163 

Division of Pennsylvania, particularly in Columbia and 
Cambria, I am credibly informed that there are large 
bands of deserters and delinquent drafted men banded 
together, armed and organized for resistance to the United 
States authorities. The organization in Columbia county 
alone numbers about 500 men; in Cambria it is said to be 
larger. These men are encouraged in their course and 
assisted by every means by the political opponents of the 
Administration The Union men are over- 
awed by the organized power of the malcontents, while 
many who have heretofore been supporters of the policy 
of the Government, preferring their comfort to their prin- 
ciples, are going over to its enemies. Several deputations 
and committees have called u})on me, representing these 
facts in the strongest light." General Whipple reports,^ 
August 9th, 1863, the need of more soldiers for the draft 
in Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania, and describes how 
a foi'ce of about 3,000 was intimidated from attacking 
the 47th Pennsylvania Militia at Minersville "by the 
opportune arrival of a re-enforcement of a battery of 
field artillery and four companies of infantry." 

These are no irresponsible sources of information. See 
next the evidence of the Governor of Pennsylvania. lie 
wrote'' to Stanton, Secretary of War, October 23rd, 1862, 
that " the organization to resist the draft in Schuylkill, 
Luzerne, and Carbon counties is very formidable. There 
are several thousand in arms and the people who will not 
join have been driven from the county. They will not 
permit the drafted men, who are willing, to leave, and 

^War of the Rebellion, &c.. Serial number 124. For the later volumes the serial 
number suffices. 

^Vnr of the Rebellion, Ac, Series I., Vol. XIX., Part II., p. 493. 



164 The Real Lincoln. 

yesterday forced them to get out of the cars. I wish to 
crush the resistance so effectually that the like will not 
occur again. One thousand regulars would be most effi- 
cient." His need for "regulars" is explained on the next 
page by the answer of Gen. Jno. E. Wool to General Hal- 
leck's order to help Governor Curtin, that the lOSth 
New York Volunteej-s have killed an engineer and are 
threatening "other injuries to passing trains," so that he 
had removed it from the Relay House to Washington, 
"where it would do no harm." 

As to New York city, it has ever since been made a 
reproach to it by Republicans that Mayor Wood proposed, 
before the war began, that the city of New York should 
announce herself an independent republic, rather than 
side with the President. Even soldiers of New York State 
who had volunteered were "disloyal." Gen. B. F. But- 
ler's farewell to his command at Fort Monroe, Virginia, of 
August 18th, 1861, gives^ curiously qualified commenda- 
tion " to the men and a large portion of the officers of the 
20th New York Volunteers, and to the officers and true 
men of the 1st New York Volunteers, who have withstood 
the misrepresentation of newspapers, the appeals of parti- 
sans and politicians, and the ill-judged advice of friends 
at home, .... and remained loyal to the flag of 
their country. Very great credit is due them." 

Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews tells us (History of the United 
States, Vol. II., p. 65, et seq.), "A Democratic Convention 
met at Albany in January, 1861, to protest against forci- 
ble measures. The sentiment that if force were to be 
used it should be 'inaugurated at home.' here evoked hearty 

^War of the Rebellion; Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 
Series I., Vol. V., p. 601. 



The Real Lincoln. 165 

response. There were signs of even a deeper disaffec- 
tion." .... 

Governor Horatio Seymour had been among the fore- 
most to avow when the first States seceded that the 
South had suffered wrongs that justified her secession, 
and to protest that States should not be pinned to the 
Union with bayonets. He had enormous backing, as is 
shown above and will be further shown, in his opposition 
as Governor to the war and to emancipation, persisted 
in to the end so far as was at all possible. 

General Dix showed himself well informed about New 
York city, whence he wrote Secretary Stanton^ in words 
that proved minutely prophetic: "Neither the State nor 
the city authorities can be counted on for any aid in en- 
forcing the draft, and, while I impute no such designs to 
them, there are men in constant communication with 
them who, I am satisfied, desire nothing so much as a 
collision between the State and General Governments and 
an insurrection in the North in aid of the Southern rebel- 
lion." Again General Dix wrote, for himself. General 
Canby, and the Mayor (Serial No. 124, p. 671), "We are 
of opinion that the draft can be safely commenced in New 
York on Monday with a sufficient force, but there ought 
to be 10,000 troops in the city and harbor. There is 
little doubt that Governor Seymour will do all in his 
power to defeat the draft short of forcible resistance to it." 

Schouler makes the comprehensive concession (History 
of the United States, Vol. VI., p. 417, et seq.) that the State 
of New York was "obstructive to the President's wishes" — 
a mode of expression which is significant — and records 

^War of the Rebellion; Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 
Serial No. 125, p. 625. 



166 The Real Lincoln. 

that Seymour said in his Inaugural as Governor that 
"the conscription act was beheved by one-haU" the people 
of the loyal States a violation of the supreme constitu- 
tional law." For Seymour's view of the purpose for which 
that act was procured, see Nicolay and Hay, who record 
(Abraham Lincoln, Yo\. VII., p. 22. and p. 25) that both 
Governor Seymour and Archbishop Hughes not only made 
friendly addresses to the mob that was forcibly stopping 
the draft in New York city, but manifested a measure of 
sympathy with its purpose; that Seymour in his address 
called the war (p. 16, et seq.) "the ungodly conflict that 
is distracting the land," and said that the purpose of the 
draft was "to stuff ballot-boxes with bogus soldier 
votes." Yet they concede that, in spite of all this, Sey- 
mour was (pp. 9 to 26) " then and to his death the most 
honored Democratic politician in the State." And this 
is shown bej-ond all question by the fact that after the 
war was over he was selected by the National Democratic 
party as its candidate for the presidency. They also 
attest unstintedly (Vol. VII., p. 13) Seymour's integrity 
and patriotism. 

It was just at the time when the great fight came on 
at Gettysburg that the people of the city of New York 
rose and defied the Federal Government — keeping control 
for four days. It was a mob, but they had evidence, as 
shown above, of sympathy from the Governor and the 
Catholic Archbishop, and they accomplished their pur- 
pose of stopping the draft, until a month later veterans 
were brought from the Army of the Potomac and New 
York was made " tranquil." Gorham, the latest biographer 
of Secretary Stanton, says that had Gettysburg resulted 
differently New York would have made no submission. 



The Real Lincoln. 167 

Rhodes (History of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 320 
to p. 328) gives particulars of the struggle, ''with a loss 
in killed and wounded of one thousand, most of whom were 
of the mol)." He says (p. 327) that the Provost Marshal 
"in charge of the draft in New York," Robert Nugent, 
wrote "a notice over his own name," saying, "The draft 
has been suspended in New York city and Brooklyn," 
that this notice "appeared in nearly all the newspapers, 
and midoubtedly was tlie cause of the rioters returning 
to their homes and employments. The militia regiments 
which had been sent to Pennsylvania began to arrive, 
and used harsh measures to repress the mobs, who still 
with rash boldness confronted the lawful powers. Can- 
non and howitzers raked the streets More 

regiments .... reached the city and continued 

without abatement the stern work The draft 

was only temporarily suspended. Strenuous precautions 
were taken to insure order during its continuance. Ten 
thousand infantry and three batteries of artillery — 'picked 
troops, including the regulars' — were sent to New York 
city from the Army of the Potomac. ' ' Of course the ex- 
ample made of New York told elsewhere. Rhodes says 
(History of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 328, note), 
" Riots in resistance to the draft broke out in Boston and 
in Troy. Init were speedily suppressed." The temper of 
the people of the interior of the State and the methods 
used for repressing it are shown in the following: W. A. 
Dart,*^ after procui-ing from the Postmaster-General the 
exclusion from the mails of the Gazette of Franklin county. 
New York, got the two editors, the Franklin brothers, 
imprisoned in Fort Lafayette by Secretary Seward. One 

^War of the Rebellion, etc., Series II., Vol. II., p. 941. 



168 The Real Lincoln. 

of them had been a judge and member of the Constitu- 
tional Convention. They had found readers and hsteners 
in their work, " proving to the people of Franklin county, 
through the colunms of the Gazette by letter and in public 
speeches at meetings called for that purpose, th.at the 
Southern States had a right to secede and that the prose- 
cution of the war on the part of the North was aggressive 
and wrong, and that the South was really occupying the 
position now that the original States did in the war of 
the Revolution." Dart further writes Seward "that 
whole county has raised but one company of volunteers 
for the war, and in several of the towns nearly as many 
persons could be enlisted for the Southern Confederacy 
as could be for the United States." 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

Attitude of Iowa and of Other States. 

THE case of Wm. H. HilP gives evidence of the feeling 
of the people of Iowa between December, 1861, 
and April, 1862, as to the guilt of Southern sympa- 
thizers, and as to the government's mode of repressing 
such sympathy, as follows: I'nited States Marshal Hoxie 
and Governor Kirkwood report (p. 1322-1324) to Secre- 
tary Seward clear proof of Hill's guilt, but say that he will 
be cleared by the jury, who are "in sympathy with the 
rebels." Seward (p. 1325) has him arrested and con- 
fined in Fort Lafayette "as soon as he is discharged from 
civil custody." Hoxie complains to Seward (p. 1327) 
that the Davenport Democrat and Neivs is reporting to its 
Iowa readers "the movements of the scoundrel Hoxie 
and his kidnapped prisoner. Hill." The whole Iowa dele- 
gation, Senate (p. 1331) and House (1337), urge Hill's 
release, and he is released, but on condition (p. 1339) that 
he withdraw his prosecution of Hoxie, which would have 
to be tried before an Iowa jmy. General Halleck, com- 
manding in Iowa, writes Hoxie (p. 1334) : " I permit the 
newspapers to abuse me to their hearts' content, and I 
advise you to do the same." 

H. M. Hoxie, United States Marshal of the District of 
Iowa, writes Secretary Seward in December, 1861 (Series 
II., Vol. II., p. 1322), "The accused will not be found 
guilty, though of his guilt there can be no question. There 

^War of the Rebellion; Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 
Series II., Vol. II., p. 1321 to p. 1339. 

(169) 



170 The Real Lincoln. 

is a large secession element in the jury selected to try him. 
. . . . It would be better for the government to enter 
a nolle and have him committed to military custody by 
order of the State Department." About the same man, 
Wm. M. Hill, the Governor of Iowa, Kirkwood, writes 
Secretary Seward (p. 1324) that "a conviction would be 
at least doubtful" and that he "would suggest that Hill 
be removed from the State by your order and imprisoned 
elsewhere under military authority." 

From Fairfield, Iowa, July 28, 1862, James F. Wilson, 
as inspector, reports to Secretary Stanton^ that "Men in 
this and surrounding counties are daily in the habit of 
denouncing the government, the war, and all engaged in 
it, and are doing all they can to prevent enlistments"; and 
gives as an instance an account of how a wounded officer 
was driven out of Rome, in Henry county, from his busi- 
ness of recruiting, by threats of hanging. A year later 
the Governor of Iowa, Kirkwood, forwards to the Secretary 
of War a complaint of J. B. Grinnell, who calls himself 
"a war candidate for Congress" that "secret societies are 
being organized to defy the tlraft and the collection of 
taxes. The traitors are armed. Our soldiers are defense- 
less. We want arms." And Governor Stone, of Iowa, 
says/ as late as May 11th, 1864, of several counties and 
townships that they are "Copperheads." 

The Governor of Wisconsin forwards and endorses a 
letter^ dated August, 1864, showing scandalous fleeing 
from the draft in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and military 
preparation to resist the draft in Wisconsin. At p. 1010 

^War of the Rebellion; Oificial Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 
Series III., Vol. II., p. 265 and p. 403. 

^War of Rebellion, &c.. Serial No. 125. 
^Same volume last quoted, p. 683. 



The Real Lincoln. 171 

of the same, he asks from Washington aid to stop the 
escape of his people from the (h-aft, and says to Secretary 
Stanton in January, 1865, that "The government must 
depend mainly upon recruiting for its soldiers. Out of 
17,000 drafted in this State during the last year, I am in- 
formed that but about 3,000 are in the service." 

Major General Pope, assigned to the control of Wiscon- 
sin after his terrible failure as Commander of the Army 
of the Potomac, wrote August, 1863,^ to Washington in 
much detail, about the resistance to tlie draft in Wiscon- 
sin, and (p. 639 of same volume) Secretary Stanton gives 
him "six companies of the Seventh Cavalry, tempoi"arily 
to preserve the peace within your State." 

Even in Connecticut, D. D. Perkins, Acting Assisting 
Provost Marshal reports" from Hartford, May 18, 1863, 
that Governor Buckingham "hoped there would be no 
difficulty in comjjleting the draft, but that if there was to be 
any difficulty at all, it might as well be here as anywhere." 
And Fred H. Thompson, Deputy Collector, writes Secre- 
tary Seward^ from Bridgeport, Connecticut, in January, 
1862, "This city is the focus and centre of the secession 
sympathizers in this portion of Connecticut," and that it 
has "a lodge of the Knights of the Golden Circle." The 
New York Churchman said^ August 5th, 1899: "At the 
breaking out of our late civil war there was in the Western 
part of Connecticut, and extending into the adjoining 
counties of New York, an ugly feeling of discontent against 
what seemed to be the policy of Mr. Lincoln towards the 
rebelling States." 

^War of the Rebellion. &c.. Serial No. 124, p. 637 and p. 638. 

^War of the Rebellion, &c.. Serial No. 124. 

''War of the Rebellion, <Scc., Series II., Vol. II., p. 1934. ♦ 

*In a letter signed Henry Chauncey, New York, beaded Bishop WilliamB. 



172 The Real Lincoln. 

General John A. Dix reported to Provost Marshal Gen- 
eral Fry/ his sending soldiers to Oswego and Oneida and 
two hundred to Schenectady and that there was no re- 
sistance. He goes on, "In the river districts, troops will 

be needed In Albany and Ulster districts, 

I think artillery as well as infantry will be needed . . ." 

Nicolay and Hay {Abraham Lincohi, Xo\. VI., p. 217) 
record "deep seated disaffection" in New Jersey, shown by 
legislation and elsewise. ]\Iajor Hill, 2nd Artillery, Acting 
Provost Marshal, asks*° from the Provost Marshal General 
at Washington, in August, 1863, for soldiers to execute 
the draft in Detroit, Michigan. Captain Conner of 17th 
United States Infantry, reports" using soldiers to put 
down resistance to the draft at Rutland, Vermont, August 
3rd, 1863. 

Governor Gilmore, of New Hampshire wrote Secretary 
Stanton^' January 13th, 1864, of a clamor against the 
government and that "the Copperheads are jubilant." 
In the same volume, p. 1188, the same wrote the same, 
February 20th, 1865, what gives light on the means used 
to fill the drafts: "The war news is glorious. Let us 
have $200,000, and I will see that our whole quota of 2,072 
men is filled by the 20th March. We want the money to 
pay bounties with to fill our quota." 

Ropes says, "and though Maryland, Kentucky, and 
Missouri remained in the Union, ^^ yet the feeling of a con- 
siderable part of the people in those States in favor of the 
new movement was so strong — aided as it was by the convic- 

^War of the Rebellion, &c., Serial No. 124, p. 665. 

^oWar of the Rebellion, &c.. Serial No. 124, p. 639. 

iiSame book as last reference, p. 624 and p. 625. 

i2TFar of the Rebellion, &c.. Serial No. 125. 

'^But Missouri did secede October 1, 1861, and Kentucky November 20, 1861. 



The Real Lincoln. 173 

tion that their States would have seceded, but for the active 
interference of the United States Government — that the 
Southern cause received substantial aid from each of them." 

The War of the Rebellion, Series III., Vol. IV., Serial 
No. 125, pp. 1173-5, gives a memorial addressed to President 
Lincoln, January 31, 1SG5, by the Constitutional Conven- 
tion of Missouri, at St. Louis. Among reasons why the 
draft presses too hard on Missouri, they say (p. 1174), " You 
will bear in mind that at the beginning of the second year 
of this war ahnost, if not quite, half our people were dis- 
loyal." 

Schouler says (History of the United States, Vol. V., p. 
598), " . . . . And not without internal bitterness 
and fratricide were Delaware, Kentucky, Tennessee and 
Missouri rescued from the perilous brink" of secession. It 
may surprise us to find Delaware first in Schouler's list 
above, but the Appendix shows how very far he was from 
any goodwill to the South, and Greeley tells us (American 
Conflict, 1864, Vol. I, p. 407) that in Wilmington, Delaware, 
a salute of a hundred guns was fired, at the news of the 
secession of South Carolina. 

The Memorial of the Public Meeting of the Christian 
Men of Chicago, held September 7th, 1862 (Fund Publi- 
cation, No. 27, of Maryland Historical Society, p. 12), 
states that Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri "have been 
kept in subjection only by overwhelming military force." 

Dr. Holland gives (Abraham Lincoln, p. 289) an expla- 
nation of what he calls ''Mr. Lincoln's pacific policy at 
this time." . . . ''an early and decided war policy 
would have been morally certain to drive every slave State 
into the Confederacy except Maryland and Delaware, and 
they would only have been retained by force." 



174 The Real Lincoln. 

About the Suns of Liberty, J. Holt wrote to Stanton 
August 5, 1864, from the Bureau of MiUtary Justice, a 
report as follows/'* He calls it "a treasonal)le organiza- 
tion," and says: . . . "that its officers in Missouri 
all occupy high social positions;" . . . that it is 
successor to the Knights of the Golden Circle, and of the 
Corps de Belgique, and of the Order of American Knights; 
. . . that it is in complete sympathy with the rebellion, 
which it holds to be justified and right; . . . that it 
" exists alike in the North and in the South, Vallandigham 
being its head in the loyal and Price its head in the dis- 
loyal States;" . . . that "the order is numerous in 
Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky and New York, 
and exists in several of the other States. In St. Louis it 
is estimated that the membership amounts to 5,000; in 
Missouri to some 40,000 or 50,000. In Indiana a strength 
much beyond this is assigned to it. It is understood that 
Governor Brough supposes 25,000 of the order to be around 
in Ohio. They are believed to be armed in large propor- 
tion in Indiana, Illinois and Missouri, but in less propor- 
tion in Kentucky and New York." 

General Halleck, Military Adviser of the President, 
and General in Chief, wrote General Grant from Washington 
April 12, 1864, the following,^^ which shows conclusively, 
considering the writer and the official he addressed, a very 
serious disloyalty in three States: "I have just received 
General Heintzelman's report on General Burbaze's tele- 
gram in regard to arresting certain persons in Ohio, Indi- 
ana and Illinois. General Heintzelman does not deem it 



^^War of the Rebellion; Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 
Serial No. 125, pp. 577-579. 

isTFor of the Rebellion; Official Records of Union and Confederate Armies, Serial 
No. 125, p. 613. 



The Real Lincoln. 175 

prudent to make arrests at the present time, as a rescue 
would probably be attempted, and his force is not sufficient 
to put down an insurrection. He thinks there will be a 
forcible resistance to the draft, and greatly fears disturb- 
ances before that time. He does not deem the prisoners 
of war as secure, and thinks a combination has been formed 
to release them and seize the arsenals. To provide against 
this, he wants 10,000 men in each of the States of Indiana 
and Illinois, and 5,000 in Ohio. 

"General Pope and the Provost Marshal of Wisconsin 
report that there will be armed resistance to the draft in 
that State. ... I think nmch importance should be 
attached to the representations of General Heintzelman 
in regard to the condition of affairs in the West." 



CHAPTEK XXI\^. 

Purpose of Emancipation. 

THE purpose and expectation with which Lincohi 
issued the Emancipation Proclamation has been 
questioned and discussed as follows: Burgess says {The 
Civil War and the Constitution, p. 16 or IIS) of Lin- 
coln's Emancipation Proclamation, "It contained para- 
graphs which might fairly be interpreted, and were so 
interpreted by the Confederates, as inciting the negroes 
to rise against their masters, thus exposing to all the hor- 
rors of a servile insurrection, with its accompaniment of 
murder and outrage, the farms and plantations where 
the women and children of the South lived lonely and 
unprotected." Burgess offers a labored defense (Vol. II,, 
p. 16, et seq.) against the charge that Lincoln's purpose 
loas slave insurrection, or "at least that Lincoln saw that 
the inevitable result of his act would be slave insurrec- 
tion"; and Burgess fully concedes that the incitement of 
slaves to massacres of their masters would be not only 
immoral, but positively "barbaric." And Burgess adds 
(p. 118), still in the line of apology, "It is to be regretted 
that the questions at issue between the Union and the 
Confederacy could not have been fought out, when ap- 
pealed to the trial of arms, by the whites only; but it is 
difficult to demonstrate the immorality of Mr. Lincoln's 
order upon this subject." 

It is not difficult to understand why servile insurrection, 
with all its horrors, was expected by people outside of the 

(176) 



The Real Linculn. 177 

South. The slavery in the South hatl been j^icturecl to 
the world very falsely — notably by Mrs. Harriet Beecher 
Stowe in Uncle Tom's Cabin: nor is it difficult to explain 
why the expectation of the horrors of servile insurrection 
was disappointed, but the explanation is too long for 
this page, and will be found in a note below.' 

Arming the slaves was one of the methods adopted to 
suppress "disloyalty." To arm slaves against their mas- 
ters, with the horrors that may be expected to result, has 
been accounted barbarity. The French have been bitterly 



'It is a graceless task, in this twentieth century, to say anything that looks 
like a defense, or even an apology, for slavery; but the proverb tells us to give even 
the devil his due, and on that ground, at least, those who most hate the memory 
of slavery may listen to the following suggestions. They are submitted that the 
children of slaveholders may be saved from being betrayed into the error of regard- 
ing with reprobation the conduct of their parents in holding slaves. 

Those who rejoice most in the emancipation of the negroes must find a serious 
check in their exultation if they open their eyes to some of the chief changes in 
the condition of the negro race since its emancipation. 

The negro slave was a highly valued member of the body politic; a tiller of 
the soil, whose services cfiuld be counted on when the crop was pitched, and a laborer 
who furnished to all his fellows, young and old, sick and well, a more liberal supply 
of the necessaries of life than was ever granted to any other laboring class in any 
other place or any other age. And in what the Economists call the distribution 
of the wealth that was produced by the negro's labor and the skill of the master 
who guided and restrained him, the share the master took was small indeed com- 
pared with what the Captains of Industry took in the free society of the same day. 
Compared with the share those Captains take now, the modest share taken by the 
masters was what the magnates of to-day would scorn to consider. The negro lived, 
too, in cheerful ignorance of the ills for which he has been so much pitied. One 
is startled now to hear the cheerful whistle or the loud outburst of song from a negro 
that once was heard on every hand, night and day. Nor was his attitude one of 
mere resignation to his lot. That it was one of hearty goodwill to the masters 
was conclusively shown during the war between the States. .\ distinguished 
Northern writer has lately invited attention to the indisputable fact that the ne- 
groes could have ended the war during any one day or night that it lasted. And 
the kindly attitude of the negro to the master was shown not neg.itively only, not 
by forbearance only. Not only did a vast majority of them stay at their posts, 
working to feed and watching to protect the families of the absent soldiers — when 
all the able-bodied white men were absent soldiers — but after their emancipation 
ten thousand examples occurred of respectful and grateful and even generous 
conduct to their late masters for one instance where a revengeful or a reproachful 
or even disrespectful demonstration was made. Of the few survivors of those 

12 



178 The Real Lincoln. 

denounced by American historians for arming the Indians 
against the early Enghsh settlers in America. Did the 
people of the North and West approve of arming the 
slaves against their Southern masters? What was Lin- 
coln's purpose and expectation in doing it? 

Greeley says {American Conflict, Vol. I., p. 527) that 
the "repugnance in Congress and in the press, and among 
the people, to arming the blacks, was quite as acrid, per- 



who stood in the relation of master and slave, a considerable number still maintain 
relations of strong and often tender friendship. John Stuart Mill worshipped 
liberty and detested slavery, but he confessed that the goodwill of the slaves to 
the master was to him inexplicable. And all this is none the less true, if all be 
granted as true about the abuses of slavery that Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe painted 
in Uncle Tom's Cabin and in the Key to Uncle Town's Cabin. Abuses no less vile 
and on a far greater scale have occurred and still occur in England and in America, 
with all their boasts of freedom; not to speak of late occurrences in South Africa 
and in the Philippines. 

To-day the negro is a formidable danger to the State and to society, and a 
danger that threatens only too surely to become constantly a greater danger. 
Elaboration of this proposition is unnecessary. 

The curious niay stOl see a manuscript letter in which Peter Minor, of Peters- 
burg, Virginia, frankly tells his nephew, John Minor, of Fredericksburg, that the 
Virginia Legislature did right in rejecting a bill the nephew had proposed for the 
emancipation of the negioes, and says that they had as well turn loose bears and 
lions among the people. The Virginians of that day were as ardent lovers of all 
attainable liberty as the Virginians of the sixties, whose conduct in the war between 
the States has at last extorted high praise even from such a represent ati\'e of the 
best product of New England as Mr. Charles P'rancis Adams, .son of Mr. Lincoln's 
Minister to England. The Virginians of a still earlier day, with other Southern 
leaders, notably the Georgians, had striven often and in vain to get the importa- 
tion of slaves stopped, but Parliament before the Revolution and Congress after- 
wards listened to the owners of the slave-ships of Old England and New England 
and continued the slave trade. Many of the fortunes that now startle us with 
their splendor in Newport, R. I., had their origin in the slave trade, and the social 
magnates who have inherited these fortunes might take with perfect right as their 
coat of arms a handcuffed negro, the design which Queen Elizabeth gave to Captain 
John Hawkins for his escutcheon, when .she knighted him as a reward for the bene- 
fit that he had conferred on Christendom in orginating the slave trade from the 
coast of Africa to America. John Fiske tells us the story. 

But the Virginians knew the negro. Although his industrial education on 
the Southern plantations had raised him far above the bloody and cannibalistic 
barbarism of his home in Africa, the Virginians knew that to emancipate him as 
the chivalrous young legislator proposed would be to "turn loo.se lions and bears 
among them," as old Peter Minor said. They foresaw one of the consequences 
of emancipation — the danger to which a hundred thousand husbands and fathers 
of the South must to-day leave their homes exposed if they leave them unguarded 



The Real Lincoln. 179 

tinacious, and denimciatory as that which had been excited 
by the pohcy of emancipation." We have seen how very 
acrid and pertinacious that repugnance was. 

James C. Welhng (Reminiscences of Lincoln, cfcc, p. 521) 
quotes the diary of Secretary Chase to prove that on the 
21st of July, 1862, in a Cabinet meeting, "the President 
expressed himself as averse to arming the negroes . . .;" 
and Welling shows by the same diary of the 3rd August, 

for an hour. Each day's newspapers make it impossible to deny this state of tilings. 
All Christendom is crying shame on the barbarous lynchings that are occurring 
in the States of the North as well as of the South, but even New England must 
concede that the provocation in the North is trifling compared with that in the 
South. Since President Roosevelt has twice suggested the barbarities practiced 
by Filipinos as palliation for the guilt of the tortures which so many of his soldiers 
have been convicted of using on "insurgent" Filipinos, none should forget the 
provocation, without a parallel in history, for the lynchings in the Southern States. 

A suggestion from Grover Cleveland has great weight with many good and 
wise men, but some curious and interesting recollections are suggested by his recom- 
mendation in a late address "that technical schools for negroes be dotted all over 
the South." .\ very elaborate exposition of the need for technical education of 
the people in place of the kind that has been till now given was published .some years 
since as a report of the Department of Education at Washington with all the authen- 
tication that the Government could give it, and its recommendations have been 
largely adopted. In setting forth the need for this great change this report declares 
that the existing public-school system is such a failure th.at something radically 
different must be substituted for it. The concession of failure is hardly less com- 
plete than that lately nuiile by another authority of the very highest rank, Presi- 
dent Elliott, of Harvard University, in addresses made to two great educational 
assemblies in two New England States. Incidentally the report makes another 
concession, and it is, as is said above, curious and interesting to compare it with 
what Mr. Cleveland now proposes as the cure for the country's grievous embarrass- 
ment about the emancipated negro. 

The authoritative document referred to above, issued by the Government in 
Washington for the instruction of the peojjle of the United States, expressly de- 
clares that the best technical education that the world has ever seen or can ever 
hope to see was the education that was given by their masters to the negroes before 
their emancipation. There was good reason why it should be so. Every boy and 
every girl was set to such work as each was be.st fitted for and taught to do it well; 
for the teaching was not done by a salaried official with the inefficiency so familiar 
to us all, but b.v a person strongly prompted by interest to make the teaching suc- 
cessful and having power to enforce exertion in the |)upil, while he or she was at 
the same time strongly restrained by self-interest from impairing the health of 
the pui)il by work at too early an age or too hard work or too dangerous work at 
any age. Is not this in strange contrast with the "free" labor of to-day, when 
such strong protests are urged every flay against child labor, overwork and danger- 
ous work in the factories and the mines of the North and South? 



180 The Real Lincoln. 

1862, that the President said, on the same question, that 
he "was pretty well cured of any objection to any measure, 
except want of adaptedness to putting down the rebel- 
lion." 

It was a deliberate conclusion, for Holland quotes 
(Abraham Lincoln, p. 391) a letter of Lincoln's to A. G. 
Hodges, of Frankfort, Kentucky, April 4, 1864, . . 
" I believed the intlispensable necessity for military eman- 
cipation and arming the blacks would come." . . . We 
have further light how it was regarded in an extract given 
by Rhodes (History of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 333), 
from an address of Major Higginson at Cambridge in 1897, 
"for at that date (February, 1863) plenty of good people 
frowned on the use of colored troops." We have Lin- 
coln's own statement of the public mintl about it, quoted 
by Rhodes (History of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 334): 
" I was opposed on nearly every side when I first favored 
the raising of colored regiments," said President Lincoln 
to General Grant, " and no one can appreciate the heroism 



One of the worst of the many reproaches brought against the slaveowner by 
the abolitionist was the allegation that he denied his slave education. Is it not 
curious to observe that the highest authorities now say that it is necessary to change 
the existing system of education to one radically different, and to learn that the 
highest authority in the United States, the Department of Education, has conceded 
that the technical education to which we are turning had attained its highest per- 
fection in the system of slavery which has disappeared? 

Another truth about slavery seems to have escaped the observation of all. 
No one will deny that the evils of drunkenness are among the greatest that society 
has to encounter. It is needless to recite them. It is no less incontestable that 
nineteen-twentieths of these evils fall on the laboring class. The dnmken laborer 
brings the miseries of cold and htmger and death from want upon mothers, sisters, 
wives, widows and children. Drink hurt the health of an exceedingly small num- 
ber of the negro slaves and the life of almost none. And when disabling sickness 
or death from that or from any other cause did come, it made no difference at all 
in the supply of food, clothing, fire, doctors or nurses to the aged, the women or 
the children. 

Some tender hearts who do not deserve to be called sentimental will be re- 
volted at the claims suggested in this paper of such benevolent functions for slavery, 
but only by closing their eyes to the truth can they deny the claims. 



The Real Lincoln. 181 

of Colonel Shaw^ and his officers and soldiers without 
adding the savage threats of the enemy, the disapproba- 
tion of friends, the antipathy of the army, the sneers of 
the multitude here; without reckoning the fire in the rear 
as well as the fire in front." 

It seems impossible to refuse to Lincoln what he thus 
claims — all the credit that is deserved by any one for 
arming the slaves, and, as his own account shows the 
bitter reprobation it received from the people of the North 
and West, [ind from the army, no one should be surprised 
at Rhodes's report (History of the United States, Vol. IV., 
p. 344) that "The governing classes in England could see 
in it" — the Emancipation Proclamation — "nothing but 
an attempt to excite servile insurrection," in support of 
which statement Rhodes c[uotes (p. 355) the following 
from the London Times: "President Lincoln calls to his 
aid the execrable expedient of a servile insurrection." 
Rhodes quotes the Saturday Review, too, as making it a 
crime, and further says that even friends of the United 
States in England sent back " comments that were dubious 
and chilling," for which he quotes The London Spectator 
and the Duchess of Argyle. The Spectator has not ceased 
to this day — 1903 — boasting of its steady support of the 
North against the South in this contest, and of having 
been ahnost alone in supporting that side. Rhodes further 
says that the London Times and the Saturday Review 
represented the highest intelligence of England. 

How Negro Soldiers Were "Enlisted." 
A romantic picture has been presented to the world 
of the negroes enlisting — one hundred and eighty thou- 

^Shaw was a Boston gentleman who accepted the colonelcy of a regiment of 
negroes. 



182 The Real Lincoln. 

sand of them — in the Union army to vindicate their hberty. 
See what the facts were. We have Gen. W. T. Sherman's 
accomit of the way the negro soldiers were enlisted and 
his estimate of their value {Memoir, Vol. II., p. 249). At 
the end of his March to the Sea he says, " When we reached 
Savannah we were beset liy ravenous State Agents from 
Hilton Head, South Carolina, who enticed and carried 
away our servants and the corps of pioneers^ which we 
had organized, and which had done such excellent service. 
On one occasion my own aide-de-camp, Colonel Audenreid, 
found at least a hundred poor negroes shut up in a house 
and pen, waiting for the night, to be conveyed stealthily 
to Hilton Head. They appealed to him for protection, 
alleging that they had been told that they must be soldiers ; 
that 'Massa Lincoln' wanted them. I never denied the 
slaves a full opportmiity for enlistment, but I did prohibit 
force to be used, for I knew that the State Agents were 
more influenced by the profit they derived from the large 
bounties than by any love of country or of the colored 
race. In the language of Mr. Frazier, the enlistment of 
every black man 'did not strengthen the army, but took 
away one white man from the ranks.' "^ 

Leland {Lincoln, p. 61, et seq.) quotes a soldier as say- 
ing, "I used to be opposed to having black troops, but 
when I saw ten cart-loads of dead niggers carried off the 
field yesterday I thought it better they should be killed 
than I." 

3A11 negroes; he has showed that he used the negroes only as laboring pioneers 
and as servants, not at aO as soldiers. 

^Sherman's authoritative professional opinion here antagonizes the often 
repeated allegation that "the colored troops fought nobly." The fact that "the 
enlistment of every black man took a white man from the ranks" was one tempta- 
tion to vote for arming the slave, to men eager to escape military service, as nearly 
all the people of all the States are shown to have been. 



The Real Lincoln. 183 

Sherman's report above of State Agents kidnapping 
negroes to be shipped for enhstment from Hilton Plead, 
on the coast of South CaroUna, has hght cast upon it by 
the two following extracts. The War of the Rebellion, &c., 
Serial 125., p. 631, gives a letter of the Mayor of Boston, 
H. Alexander, Jr., endorsed with urgent approval by the 
Governor, Andrew, August 22, 1864, as follows: "From 
present hidications, I believe it will be impossible for this 
city to fill its quota under the last call of the President by 
volunteers from its own citizens." Of the men enrolled 
he says, "More or less of these men are now leaving the 
city daily to avoid the draft, and as the 5th of September 
approaches, the number leaving will he largely increased; 
. . . that more than 500 of the ablest-bodied young 
men . . . will have left. . . . Now, what we 
want, and what I hope we may accomplish, is to get men 
from abroad to go as volunteers." In the next preceding 
volume of the record last quoted, sufficiently indicated as 
Serial Number 124, at p. 110, Governor Andrew, of Massa- 
chusetts, writes Secretary Stanton, April 1, 1863, . . . 
"If the United States is not prepared to organize a brigade 
in North Carolina, I would gladly take those black men 
who may choose to come here, receive our State bounty, 
and be nmstered in." 

General Sherman shows above how some of the negro 
soldiers were enlisted. Here is light upon another method. 
Lesslie T. Perry' quotes from a letter of Lincoln to Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Glenn, Henderson, Kentucky, of February 
7, 1865: ''Complaint is made to me that you are forcing 
negroes into the military service, and even torturing 

^Late of the War Record's Board of Publication. See LippincoW s Magmine 
for February, 1902. 



184 The Real Lincoln. 

them," and Lincoln reproves it, though not severely, and 
forbids it. An examination of the orders of Major-General 
David Hunter, commanding the Department of the South, 
as found in the War of the Rebellion, will account for all 
the negroes that were enlisted. General Hunter gives 
orders (Series I., Vol. IV., p. 466) how to deal with '"'all 
fugitives who come within our lines. . . . Such as 
are able-bodied men you will at once enroll and arm as 
soldiers." Again, from headquarters. Department of the 
South, Hilton Head, South Carolina, August 16, 1864, 
General Hunter issued the order, " All able-bodied colored 
men between the ages of eighteen and fifty within the 
military lines of the Department of the South, who have 
had an opportunity to enlist voluntarily and refused to 
do so, shall be drafted into the military service of the 
United States, to serve as non-commissioned officers and 
soldiers in the various regiments and batteries now being 
organized in the Department." This order alone may 
account for the whole 180,000 colored vohmteers. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Opposition to Lincoln^s Re-Electioii. 

THE crowning proof of the attitude of a very large part 
of the people of the North and the West is the 
platform and the nominee adopted by the Democratic 
l)arty for the presidential election of 1864, near the end 
of the war. It advocated the abandonment of the war, 
and the nominee was McClellan, an avowed opponent of 
emancipation. Colonel Roosevelt, now President, said 
in a speech at Grand Rapids, Michigan, September 8, 
1900, "In 1864 the Democratic platform denomiced the 
further prosecution of the Civil War." . . . The 
chairman of the convention in 1864 made a speech in 
which " he declared that every lover of ci^^l libert}^ through- 
out the world was interested in the success of the Copper- 
head party." Such was the issue adopted on which to 
appeal to the North and the West, and the framers of it 
were called by Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy^ some of 
the most astute and experienced statesmen of their day. 
Nor was the appeal a failure, as has been so widely her- 
alded. It is Ida Tarbell, Nicolay and Hay, Butler, Schouler, 
Plolland, McClure, Lincoln himself, who have recorded as 
follows: That three months after his renomination they 
all despaired of his re-election. 

Gilmore gives (Personal Recollections of Abraham Lin- 
coln, p. 102) a long list of names, including " about all the 
most prominent Republican leaders, except Conkling, 



'Welles* paper. The Opposition to Lincoln in 1864, in The Atlantic Monthly, 
Vol. XVI., dated 1878. 

(185) 



186 The Real Lincoln. 

Sumner, and Wilson," who, with more or less full com- 
mittal, joined in a solicitation to Rosecrans to run against 
Lincoln. Ida Tarbell concedes^ only "a few conservatives 
supported Lincoln in his desire for a second term," while 
" there were more who doubted his ability, and who were 
secretly looking for a better man. At the same time a 
strong and open opposition to his re-election had de- 
veloped." 

Nicolay {Outbreak of the Rebellion, p. 475) says: "The 
evident desire of the people for peace was a subject of deep 
solicitude to the administration." Morse (Lincoln, Vol. 
IL, p. 274) shows the general despair of electing Lincoln, 
in a letter to Lincoln from Raymond, chairman of the 
Republican National Executive Committee, August 22, 
1864, which says: "I hear but one report — the tide is set- 
ting against us," speaking himself for New York, and 
quoting Cameron for Pennsylvania, Wasldiurne for Illinois, 
and Morton for Indiana, "and so for the rest." 

Nicolay and Hay (Abraham Lincoln, Vol. IX., p. 249) say 
that ... by August, 1864, Weed, Raymond, every one, 
including Lincoln, despaired of his re-election. A. K. 
McClure says (Our Presidents and How We Make Them, 
p. 183), " But in fact three months after his renomination 
in Baltimore his defeat by General McClellan was generally 
apprehended by his friends and frankly conceded by Lin- 
coln himself." Several of his biographers give copies of 
a memorandum sealed up by Lincoln and connnitted to 
one of his Cabinet for safekeeping, in which is recorded 
his conviction that McClellan's election over him was 
certain, with a statement of his purposes how to act during 
the interval before McClellan would take the presidency. 

^McClure's Magazine for July, 1899, p. 268. 



The Real Lincoln. 187 

It is referred to by Welles in his papers in the Atlantic 
Monthly under the heading, ''Opposition to Lincoln in 
1864/' (pp. 266 and 366, et seq.,) as "Lincoln's despondent 
note of August 23, 1864." Rhodes, too, quotes it.^ 

Allen Thorndike Rice c^uotes,^ with his endorsement 
of its truth, W. H. Croffut's account of Lincoln's offering 
his withdrawal and his support for the presidency to Hora- 
tio Seymour, and, when that failed, his offering the same 
to General McClellan, because he despaired of being him- 
self elected, and asked in return from each his support for 
the rest of his term. Nicolay and Hay, too, tell {Abraham 
Lincoln, Vol. VIL, p. 12) of Lincoln's offer to Seymour 
of the nomination. The nomination for Vice-President 
Lincoln had offered to Gen. B. F. Butler (Butler s Book, 
p. 155, et seq.) before he procured' the nomination of 
Andrew Jolmson. 

Rhodes says* that Thaddeus Stevens said that in the 
winter of 1863-'4 there was but one single member of Con- 
gress who favored Lincoln's renomination, and Rhodes 
gives a long list of the names of leaders that opposed him, 
showing "a formidable discontent," and he says further, 
" Striking indeed it is to one who immerses himself in the 
writings of the time to contrast the almost universal 
applause of Grant with the abuse of Lincoln by the Demo- 
crats, the caustic criticism of him by some of the Radical 
Republicans, the danming of him with faint praise by 
others of the same faction." All this was in the spring 
of 1864. Again Rhodes says (Vol. IV., p. 518), "Greeley 



Wol. IV., p. 522. See also Roosevelt's Cromwell, p. 208, where the note 
is referred to. 

''Reminiscences of Lincoln, Ac, Introduction, pp. 29 to 35. 

^A. K. McClure'.s Our Presidents and How We Make Them, p. 185, et seq. 

'^History of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 4.37 and p. 462. 



188 The Real Lincoln. 

wrote, August 8, 1864, 'Mr. Lincoln is already beaten.' " 
Rhodes gives evidence, like Nicolay above, of the hope- 
lessness of success that prevailed among the leading Re- 
publicans (History of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 521), 
(quoting the words of the above-mentioned reports from 
•*2^/Thurlow Weed, E. B. Washburn, from Cameron about 
Pennsylvania, Morton about Indiana, and Henry J. Ra}''- 
mond, as chairman of the National Executive Conmiittee. 
Governor Morton reported that " Indiana would go against 
us 50,000 to-morrow," and the Chairman, "that nothing 
but the most resolute and decided action on the part of 
the Government and its friends can save the country 
from falling into hostile hands." Morse, too (Lincoln, 
Vol. II., p. 247), gives Raymond's letter to Lincoln of 
August 22nd conveying the above reports. 

Rhodes records (Vol. IV., p. 199, et seq.) that Lincoln 
himself was conscious " that he was losing his hold on the 
people of the North." 

What "resolute and decided action on the part of the 
Government" relieved it from this hopeless condition 
will be seen in the next chapter. 



CHAPTER XXYI. 

How Lincoln Got Himself Re-Elected. 

IT WAS under the conditions above described that Lin- 
cohi's second election came on. The way it was con- 
ducted explains why he no longer despaired of success, 
and why he was successful. 

Despotic Control by the Secretaries of State and of ]]ar. 

The management of the election was connnitted in large 
measure to Seward, Secretary of State, and to Stanton, 
Secretary of War; the exercise of despotic power by both 
of whom has been described. Even a canvass for the presi- 
dency by Democrats was difficult, for an order of the War 
Department had made criticism of the administration 
treason, triable by court-martial. 

]^otes of Soldiers in the Field and Soldiers Sent Home to 

Vote. 

A. K. McClure (Our Presidents and How We Make Them, 
p. 195, et seq.) gives his answer to a messenger sent him 
"on a special message by Lincoln" about two weeks before 
the election, to learn the situation in Pennsylvania, as fol- 
lows: "I had to tell him that I saw little hope of carrying 
the State on a home vote. The army vote would no tloubt 
be largely for Lincoln, and give him the State, but it would 
be declared a bayonet election, and with such results in 

(189) 



190 The Real Lincoln. 

Pennsylvania, and New York lost, as was possible ; . . . 
that I could go to Washington in a few days, if it should 
appear necessary to take extreme measures to save the 
State on the home vote. ... As the political condi- 
tions did not improve, I telegraphed Lincoln that I would 
meet him . . . to discuss the campaign." . . . 
McClure then tells how he proposed, and Lincoln agreed, 
that five thousand Pennsylvania soldiers should be fur- 
loughed by Grant for twenty days, . ' . . as that vote 
cast at home would ensure a home majority.' Lincoln 
answered that he had no reason to think that Grant would 
favor his election — thought he could count on Meade and 
Sheridan. The order was accordingly sent to General 
Meade, with directions that the order he returned, and, as 
soon as the furloughs were granted, it was returned, and 
so concealed. In connection with this disbelief of Lin- 
coln in General Grant's friendliness to his re-election, it 
is interesting to consider General Wiw. T. Sherman's state- 
ment {Memoir, \o\. IL, p. 247) that Lincoln was "tor- 
tured with suspicions of my infidelity to him and his negro 
policy." McClure says, too (p. 162), that a con^^titutional 
change had been hurried through in Pennsylvania that 
same summer of 1864, that "was obviously intended to 
give the minority no rights at all in holding army elections." 
He says the law was "liable to grossest abuses, and without 
any means to restrain election frauds," and his descrip- 
tion shows that it worked so. Allen Thorndike Rice tells 
the same story about Grant {Introdvction to Reminiscences 
of Lincoln, p. 43). 

Chauncey M. Depew describes (Reminiscences of Lin- 
coln, &c., p. 22, et seq.) the working of the new amemlment 
in the Pennsvlvania election; . . . hoM^ the soldier 



The Real Lincoln. 191 

vote was polled — . . . " made out by the soldier him- 
self, certified by the commanding officer of his company 
or regiment, and sent to some friend at his last voting 
place to be deposited on election day." Depew says that 
without the soldier vote, so managed, Lincoln would have 
failed to get the vote of New York. 

Ex-President Buchanan wrote Mr. Leiper October 26, 
1864 (Curtis' Life of Buchanan, Vol. II., p. 627), . . . 
"and I now indulge the hope that we" — that is, the Demo- 
crats, in the Pennsylvania election — "may have a majority 
over the soldiers' vote and all." 

Forcible Control of Elections by Armed Soldiers and by Sus- 
pension of the Writ. 

Genreal B. F. Butler tells more plainly than Depew above 
why Lincoln did not "fail to get the vote of New York." 
He says (Butler's Book, p. 753 to 762) that early in Novem- 
ber, 1864 — the November of Lincoln's second election — 
Stanton summoned him, and sent him to New York city 
to prevent an anticipated outbreak in the city, which was 
to give the whole vote of New York to McClellan by a far 
more widely extended and far better organized riot than 
the draft riot of 1863. At i^age 330, et secj., Butler had 
before described how he ])ut down those draft riots, as 
follows: "Ten thousand infantry and three batteries of 
artillery, picked troops, including regulars, were sent to 
New York city from the Army of the Potomac." By aid 
of these, Butler says, that "the draft was resumed, and 
proceeded with entire i)eacefulness." Not only General 
Butler, but Rhodes, too, describes,' with full particulars, 

^Butler's Book, p. 752 to p. 773, and Uhodes' History of the United Stiites, Vol. 
IV., p. 330,etseq. 



192 The Real Lincoln. 

the large force with which he occupied New York city, 
and show how completely he controlled its vote and its 
opposition to the war that had lately been demonstrated 
in its great anti-draft riot. See how frankly Rhodes 
concedes that this despotic overruling of the will of the 
people w^as Lincoln's own doing. He says {History of the 
United States, Vol. IV., p. 417), "to meet the action of 
the judges who were releasing his conscripts and deserters, 
he stopped the writ of habeas corpus, but deferred till four 
days after the election his call for three hundred thousand 
more volunteers, with a draft to fill deficiencies." In con- 
sidering what the consequences would have been of a 
faihn-e to capture Mcksburg, Rhodes says (p. 183), "If 
nothing worse, certain it is that President Lincoln would 
have been deposed, and a dictator would have been placed 
in his stead as chief executive until peace could be assured 
to the nation by separation or elsewise." 

Removal of His Chief Competitor. 

In the chapter headed Estimates of Lincoln it has been 
shown that he hatl from first to last the bitter and con- 
temptuous hatred of his Secretary of the Treasury, Thos. 
Chase, whom he finally made Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court of the United States. A. K. McClure says {Lincoln 
and Men of the War Times, p. 123, et seq.), "Lincoln's de- 
sire for re-nomination was the one thing uppermost in his 
mind during the third year of his administration. He 
carefully veiled his resentment against Chase, and awaited 
the fullness of time when he could by some fortuitous cir- 
cumstance remove Chase as a competitor" — his most for- 
midable and conspicuous competitor for the presidency. 



The Real Lincoln. 193 

At page 127, et seq., McClure says, "Chief Justice Taney 
died the 12th of October, 1S64. Within two weeks after, 
Chase declared himself in favor of the election of Lincoln." 
Warden says (Life of Salmon P. Chase, p. 630, et seq.) that 
Senator Sumner told him Mr. Lincoln once proposed to 
him to send for Mr. Chase, and frankly tell him that in 
his (Lincoln's) opinion he would make the best Chief Jus- 
tice we ever had, if he could only get rid of his presidential 
ambition; . . . that Senator Sunmer had to remind 
Mr. Lincoln that to do so would expose the President to 
imputations as to his motives, and would be offensive to 
Mr. Chase, as requiring in effect a pledge from the latter 
not to be, thereafter, a presidential candidate. Warden 
says^ that Chase's own State — Ohio — made the most bitter 
objection, though it came from every part of the country, 
and from many of the ablest and most earnest of Lincoln's 
friends; that it was objected that Chase was "without 
legal training," because his life had been devoted almost 
exclusively to politics, as a United States Senator, as Gov- 
ernor, as Senator again, in the Cabinet, and that "for 
many years he had given no thought or efforts to the law." 
McClure says further (Lincoln and Men of the War Time, 
p. 130) of Chase, "His personal affronts to Lincoln had 
been contemptuous and flagrant from the time he entered 
the Cabinet until he resigned from it, a little more than 
three years after, and I am sure that at no time during that 
period did Lincoln ever appeal to Chase for advice as a 
friend; ... that Lincoln regarded Chase as his bitter 



'Page 630. He says that it was told to him and to at least one other person 
by Sumner, that Chase's well known daughter, Mrs. Kate Chase Sprague, who was 
using all her powers to win him the Presidency, met Sumner, when he carried to 
Chase the news of his confirmation as Chief .lustice, with the words, "And you, 
too, Mr. Sumner, in this business of shelving papa!" 

13 



194 The Real Lincoln. 

and malignant enemy during all that period cannot be 
doubted; . . . that it was not pretended (p. 130) that 
Chase had any claim to the Chief Justiceship on the grounds 
of eminent legal attainments or of political hdelity." 

Use of Fictitious States. 

Explanation of Lincoln's re-election would be incom- 
plete without details of his use of fictitious States, and the 
details must be considered at some length. 

The New York Times of January 11, 1902, quotes Ben 
Wade as denouncing President Lincoln's " promise that 
whenever the tenth part of the people of a State came back 
he would recognize them as a State." And the Times goes 
on, meaning commendation, not censure, of Lincoln, "It 
was under this plan . . . that Union governments 
were inaugurated in Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas, 
the first two of which participated in the presidential elec- 
tion of 1S64, and all before the close of the war elected mem- 
bers to Congress." This plan was denounced by the Hon. 
H. Winter Davis, staunchest of Republicans, and Alioli- 
tionist, as follows, in the House : 

"It is not surprising, Mr. Speaker, that the President, 
having failed to sign the bill passed by the whole body of 
his supporters by both Houses, at the last session of Con- 
gress, and having assigned, under pressure of events, but 
without authority of law, reasons, good or bad, first for 
refusing to allow the bill to become a law^, and therefore 
usurping power to execute parts of it as law^, while he dis- 
carded other parts which interfered with possible electoral 
votes, those arguments should be found satisfactory to 
some minds prone to act upon the winking of authority." 
Then Winter Davis goes on, about Louisiana's then rep- 



The Real Lincoln. 195 

resentatives, " Whose representatives are they? . . . 
In Louisiana they are the representatives of tlie bayonets 
of General Banks and the will of the President, as expressed 
in his secret letter to General Banks." Then Winter 
Davis denounces with scorn the body sitting in Alexandria, 
pretending to be the legislature of the State of Virginia. 
He calls the pretended State " a fringe along the Potomac 
and the sea,'' which, he says, "has just sent two Senators 
to the other House, and has ratified the amendment of the 
Constitution of the United States abolishing slavery in 
all the rest of Virginia, where not one of them dares put 
his pretty person." And Davis goes on, ''And so Congress 
has dwindled down to a commission to audit accounts and 
to appropriate moneys to enable the executive to execute 
his will, and not ours." 

Usher shows {Reminiscences of Lincoln, &c., p. 92 to 94) 
that when Montgomery Blair and Seward objected to omit- 
ting from the Emancipation Proclamation the thirteen par- 
ishes and the city of New Orleans in Louisiana, and the coun- 
ties in Virginia near Norfolk, . . which they said were 
the very heart and backbone of slavery, Lincoln explained 
that it was already arranged that Congressmen were to 
come to Washington from these regions, and that some 
of the Congressmen were elected. Mr. Chase then said, 
"Very true; they have elected Hahn and Flanders, but 
they have not got their seats, and it is not certain they 
will;" that Mr. Lincoln rose from his seat, apparently 
irritated, and w^alked rapidly back and forth across the 
room. Looking over his shoulder at Mr. Chase, he said, 
"There it is, sir. I am to be bullied by Congress, am I? 
If I do, I'll be durned." Nothing more was said. Usher 
says, too, that a month or more thereafter Hahn and Flan- 



196 The Real Lincoln. 

ders were admitted to their seats. Page 95 of the same 
book shows that a man named Hahn was the first Free- 
State Governor of Louisiana. Rhodes quotes (Vol. IV., 
p. 4S4) a letter from Lincoln to Michael Hahn, the new 
Governor of Louisiana, elected under Lincoln's "plan" 
above described. It reads as follows: " Now you are about 
to have a convention, which, among other things, will 
probably define the elective franchise. I barely suggest 
for your private consideration whether some of the col- 
ored people may not be let in." 

Nicolay and Hay {Abraham Lincoln, Vol. IX., p. 436, 
et seq.) describe the process of making a loyal State out 
of Virginia — not West Virginia — as follows: "The diffi- 
culty of effecting reconstruction strictly in conformity 
with any assumed legal or constitutional theories appears 
clearly enough in the case of Virginia, . . . when the 
spontaneously chosen Wheeling Convention of August, 
LS61, repudiated the secession ordinance of the Richmond 
Convention, the two Houses of Congress recognized the 
restored State government of Virginia, having Governor 
Pierpoint as its executive head, by admitting to seats the 
Senators sent to Washington by the reconstructed Legis- 
lature, and the representatives elected by popular vote. 
Full reconstruction being thus recognized by both exe- 
cutive and legislative departments of the National Govern- 
ment, . . . West Virginia was organized and admitted 
to the Union as a separate State. . . . Governor Pier- 
point, with the archives and personnel of the reconstructed 
State government, removed from Wheeling to Alexandria. 
. . . But while the constitutional theory was thus ful- 
filled and perfect, the practical view of the matter cer- 
tainly presented occasion for serious criticism. The State 



The Real Lincoln. 197 

government which Governor Pierpoint brought from 
Wheeling to Alexandria could make no very imposing 
show of personal influence, official emblems or practical 
authority. The territorial limits in which it could pretend 
to exercise its functions were only such as lay within the 
Union military lines; a few counties contiguous to Wash- 
ington, two counties on the eastern shore, the vicinage of 
Fort Monroe and the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth." 
Nicolay and Hay go on {Abraham Lincoln, Vol. IX., 
p. 43cS, et seq.) to show how Pierpoint "ventured upon the 
expedient of authorizing the election of a State Conven- 
tion," and of gathering a httle Legislature about him at 
Alexandria; that this convention adopted and amended a 
constitution for Virginia which, among other things, abol- 
ished slavery. They tell how Winter Davis sneered at 
it, calling it "the common council of Alexandria." They 
quote, without dissent or comment, a "pamphlet," which 
deals as follows with the ratification by this convention of 
the 13th amendment to the Constitution of the United 
States: "And while this ratification may be said to have 
been, like Mercutio's wound, 'not so deep as a well, nor 
so wide as a church door,' it effectually served to make up 
the necessary number of twenty-seven States whose action 
made the amendment a vital i3art of the Constitution of 
the United States."^ . . . " Under this ordinance and 



'Nicolay and Hay can write as plain, gooil English as any one. The reader's 
attention is invited to the strait in which they find themselves to describe without 
censure this manufacture of Fictitious States. The cities — Norfolk and Ports- 
mouth — were as staunchly faithful to the Southern cause as Richmond or Charles- 
ton, and were kept under by such methods as setting a "disloyal" clergyman to 
work on the streets, wearing the ball and chain of a convict. It was the Rev. Mr. 
Wingfield, afterwards Bishop of the Diocese of California. The u.se of these Fie- 
titious States that might have been made in Lincoln's second election, if they had 
been needed, and the use that was made of one of them, is shown by Morse's ac- 
count given later. 



198 The Real Lincoln. 

amended constitution Governor Pierpoint carried on his 
administration, clearly not witli the normal health and 
vigor of an average State government, and yet, . . . 
that justified its continued recognition under the consti- 
tutional theory under which the President and Congress 
had recognized it before the division of the State." 

Nicolay and Hay commend Gen. B. F. Butler's conduct 
in the matters for which he has been most denounced — 
his conduct in New Orleans — and they here quote (Abra- 
ham Lincoln, Vol. IX., p. 440) his characterization of Pier- 
point as follows: . . . "a person who calls himself 
Governor, . . . pretending to be head of the re- 
stored government of Virginia." General Butler describes, 
himself {Butler's Book, p. 618), what a farce this fictitious 
state was. About the end of 1863, he says, "The army 
being much in need of recruits, and Eastern Mrginia claim- 
ing to be a fully organized loyal State, by permission of 
the President, an enrollment of all the able-bodied loyal 
citizens of Virginia within my command, was ordered for 
the purposes of a draft when one should be called for in 
the other loyal States. This order was vigorously protested 
against by Governor Pierpoint, and this was all the assist- 
ance the United States ever received from the loyal gov- 
ernment of Virginia in defending the State. My prede- 
cessors in command of the Department of Virginia and 
North Carolina, with headquarters at Fortress Monroe, had 
endeavored to recruit a regiment of loyal Virginians, but 
after many months of energetic trial, both by them and 
by myself, the attempt was abandoned. A company and 
a half was all that State would furnish to the Union, and 
these were employed in defending the lighthouses and pro- 



The Real Lincoln. 199 

tecting the loyal inhabitants from the outrages of their 
immediate neighbors." 

Morse shows (Lincoln, Vol. II., p. 297) that Lincoln 
withheld until February Sth his approval of a bill passed 
by Congress in January, that forbade the votes of any of 
the eleven seceded States from being counted in the elec- 
tion. He says the Stli of February was the very day of 
the count, and the votes of Arkansas and Tennessee, 
though offered, were not counted.'* 

Lincoln's veto, or his non-action, would have enabled 
him to use their votes, but the other methods described 
in this chapter had accomplished the purpose, and news 
of the success had reached him, so that there was no need 
for more votes. Morse, however, adds (Vol. II., p. 298), 
"Yet the vote of West Virginia was counted, and it was 
not easy to show that her title was not under a legal cloud 
fully as dark as that of Arkansas and Tennessee." Dr. 
E. Benjamin Andrews says {History of the United States, 
Vol. II., p. 196, et seq.), "When a handful of Virginia loy- 
alists, in the summer of 1861, formed a State government 
and elected national Senators and Representatives, Presi- 
dent and Congress recognized them as the true State of 
Virginia." Dr. Andrews says, further (Vol. II., p. 200), 
" Every secession State but Tennessee rejected the amend- 
ment" — the fourteenth — of the Constitution. And here 
he gives, in a note, the number of States that voted for 
the three different amendments, and adds the following 
very significant comment: "The States rejecting amend- 



■'In answer to a question of the author, the Librarian of Congress says, in a 
letter of May 6th, 1903, as follows: "On the Sth of February, 1805, the votes were 
opened by the Vice-President, Mr. Hamlin, and read by the tellers. The Vice- 
President had in his possession returns from tlie States of Louisiana and Tennes- 
see, but did not present the doubtful votes." 



200 The Real JA^icoln. 

merits, in every such instance, were either border slave 
States, not under niihtary control, or those of the free 
North where public sentiment opposed the reconstruction 
policy of Congress." 

Andrew Johnson, Military Governor of Tennessee, wrote, 
January 14, 1864, to Horace Maynard^ about the organiza- 
tion of a loyal State of Tennessee as follows: (He owed 
Lincoln already his governorship, and soon after the Vice- 
Presidency.) "The voters in March should be put to the 
severest test. . . . If it should be thought advisable, 
two Senators could be appointed now who are sound as 
regards the slavery question and the Union. Will the 
Senate admit them? ... I would give some of the 
fault-finders to understand that the real Union men will 
be for Lincoln for President. The war must be closed 
under his administration. ... I desire you to see the 
President in person and talk with him in regard to these 
matters." 

See in the volume last referred to, at page 194, a very 
similar letter addressed to Lincoln, showing how a " loyal 
State" was set up in Arkansas. Lincoln's "plan" did not 
meet General Grant's approval, for we have in the same 
volume above referred to, at page 734, his letter to the 
Secretary, Stanton, September 20, 1864, from City Point, 
Va., "Please advise the President not to attempt to doctor 
up a State government for Georgia by the appointment of 
citizens in any capacity whatever." 

This creation and use of fictitious States is plainly dealt 
with further by Morse also {Lincoln, Vol. IL, p. 295 to 
p. 298), Lincoln's re-election by an exceedingly large 

^War of the Rebellion; Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 
Serial No. 125, p. 31. 



The Real Lincoln. 201 

majority has been triuni])hantly alleged and is adduced as 
proof that what he had done and was doing had the ap- 
proval of the North and the West. That the vote of the 
electoral college should be recorded for Lincoln was quite 
inevitable in view of what the witnesses quoted in this 
sketch have recorded of the political and military manage- 
ment of affairs, at election-time and long before, in the 
Border States, in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and New York; 
in great cities like Chicago, New York and Boston, and in 
the country at large, as far as Seward's "little bell" could 
reach. But with all the odds against McClellan that have 
been showm, the actual number of votes gotten by McClellan 
was more than eighty-one per cent, of the actual number 
of votes gotten by Lincoln," although McClellan w^as fully 
committed against emancipation, and the Democratic 
platform said the war must cease. 



*The figures by which this percentage is ascertained are furnished by the 
Peabodv I,ibrary in Baltimore. 



CHAPTEK XXYII. 

Apotheosis of Lincoln. 

'TpEW WHO read this book thus far will escape the con- 
•J- elusion that The Real Lincoln was a very different 
man, in his private and in his public life, from what 
the world's verdict has pronounced him to be. The ques- 
tion then must arise in the mind of every one interested in 
his history, how so false an estimate of him was impressed 
on men's minds. The way it was done has been described 
more or less fully by several of his eulogists, as is now about 
to be shown; and a name, Apotheosis, has been given to 
the process of deification by four of his ardent eulogists.^ 
The Century Dictionary defines the word apotheosis as 
"deification; excessive honor paid to any great or dis- 
tinguished person; the ascription of extraordinary virtues 
or superhuman qualities to a human being." 

Allen Thorndike Rice describes^ the process as follows: 
" Story after story, and trait after trait, as varying in value 
as in authenticity, have been added to the Lincolniana 
until at last the name of the great War President has come 
to be a biographical lodestone, attracting without . . . 
discrimination both the true and the false." Horace 
White says,^ "The popular judgment of him is in the main 
correct and unshakable. I say in the main, because in 



'Horace White, John Russell Young, Ward H. Lamon and Vice-President 
Hamlin. 

'Introduction to Reminiscences of Lincoln, Ac, p. 18. 

^Introduction to a later book claiming to be Herndon's Abraham Lincoln. 
See the Appendix at the name of Herndon. 

(202) 



The Real Lincoln. 203 

this judgment there is a tendency to apotheosis which, 
while pardonable, is not historical, and will not last." 
And he goes on (p. 21), "The popular conception of Mr. 
Lincoln as one not seeking public honors ... is a 
post helium growth; ... he was (p. 22) in hot, inces- 
sant competition with his fellows for earthly honors." 

Horace White goes on (p. 26), "What Mr. Lincoln was 
after he became President can best be understood by 
knowing what he was before. The world owes more to 
Mr. William H. Herndon for this particular knowledge 
than to all other persons taken together." 

As late as September 14, 1901, the Church Standar'd, of 
Philadelphia, said of McKinley that "like Abraham Lin- 
coln five and thirty years ago, he was hardly known for 
what he was until he died." General Keifer said {Slavery 
and Four Years of War, p. 178), "But President Lincoln 
was not understood in 1861, nor even later during the war, 
and not fully during life, by either his enemies or his ]3er- 
sonal or party friends." Schouler says of General William 
T. Sherman's first interview with Lincoln (History of the 
United States, Vol. VL, p. 23) that he "left the mansion 
. . . silenced and mortified," and General Sherman 
himself says of the interview {Memoir, Vol. I., p. 168), 
" I was sadly disappointed, and remember that I broke 

out on John,* d ning the politicians generally, saying 

' you have got things in a hell of a fix.' " Rhodes says {His- 
tory of the United States, Vol. IV., p. 211), "The hand that 
draws the grotesque trait of Lincoln may disappoint the 
hero-worshipi:)(>r, but the truth of the story requires this 
touch which . . . and . . . serves as a justifica- 

■•His brother, Senator John Sherman, liad iiitrochiced him to the President. 



204 The Real Lincoln. 

tion for these who could not in the winter of 1862-'3 see 
with the eyes of to-day." . . . 

The biographer of Ex-Vice-President Hamhn says,'^ " In- 
deed Mr. Hamlin was of the opinion that no man ever grew 
in the executive chair in his lifetime as Lincoln did. . . 
Lincoln's growth has long been a favorite theme with 
writers and speakers ; . . . his extreme eulogists made 
the mistake of constructing a Lincoln who was as great 
the day he left Springfield as when he made his earthly 
exit four years later. Lincoln's astonishing development 
was thus ignored, and . . . There is no intention of 
reviving an issue that once caused wide discussion. . . . 
Mr. Hamlin came to the ultimate opinion that Lincoln 
was the greatest figure of the age. . . . But he saw 
two Lincolns." . . . 

In these last extracts the biographer makes us aware of 
two things — that Lincoln's Vice-President was long in 
discovering his greatness and that efforts were made to 
check the apotheosis when it began. No one who knows 
the history of the time, as told by the most ardent Northern 
historians, such as Rhodes, or Ropes, or Schouler, will 
wonder that the contest ceased on the "issue that once 
caused wide discussion." Lalor's Cyclopaedia quotes the 
official records to show that thirty-eight thousand men and 
women had been dealt with by courts-martial. Many 
incurred imprisonment, often long and torturing, and not 
a few the death sentence and execution." No doubt some 
who had disapproved the conquest and the emancipation 
were tempted to join in the io triumphe, and to share the 
monstrous spoils. The vast number who had opposed 



^Life and Times of Hanibal Hamlin, by C. E. Hamlin, p. 393. 
f'See page 138 of this book. 



The Real Lincoln. 205 

the whole war could hardly do else than despair and ac- 
quiesce. Fresh from a system that placed provost mar- 
shals wherever neetled, and furnished veteran soldiers to 
repress resistance, only very bold men would venture to 
provoke the dominant powers by criticising him who had 
won the victory and the title of martyr. No protest could 
get a hearing over the tlin of triumph. From the South 
protest was hopeless. It was the Reconstruction Period, 
a time now regarded with complacency by none or very few. 

Hamlin's biographer, his son, further goes on to say 
(p. 489), "The truth should be emphasized that it is a 
great mistake to judge public men of this time by their 
attitude toward Lincoln," and he names among those who 
opposed and bitterly censured Lincoln (p. 50, p. 51 and 
p. 449), Chandler, Wade, Sumner, Collamer, Trumbull, 
Hale, Wilson, Stevens, H. Winter Davis (p. 454), Grimes, 
Julian, Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, David Dud- 
ley Field, John Jay, Wendell Phillips, Horace Greeley, Wm. 
Cullen Bryant, and Secretary Chase. Schouler says 
{History of the United States, Vol. VL, p. 21), "Yet Lincoln 
was long believed by contemporaries secondary in point 
of statesmanship. . . . Lincoln, as one of fame's im- 
mortals, does not appear in the Lincoln of 1861, whom men 
outside of the administration^ likened in ridicule to the 
original gorilla." 

Morse says (Lincoln, Vol. I., p. 75) of Lincoln's "elab- 
orate speech" in Congress on his resolutions nicknamed 
"the Spot Resolutions," which Congress did not notice 
by any action : " It may be not a very great or remarkable 
speech, but it was a good one," . . . and says the 



'His Chief Cabinet Ministers, Stanton and Chase, were not outside of the 
administration. See what they called him, page 39 of this book. 



206 The Real Lincoln. 

resolutions "were sufficiently noteworthy to save Lincoln 
from being left among the nobodies of the House." This 
is faint 'praise for Lincoln's career in Congress. 

John Russell Young is quoted^ as follows: "I have never 
read a description of him that recalls him as I knew him. 
Something always beyond and beyond. Nor has fame 
been kind to him in the sense that fame is never kind un- 
less it is just. There is little justice in much that is written 
of Lincoln. Then comes the dismal fear that he is to live 
in an apotheosis. His sad fate may invite this; assassi- 
nation is ever a consecration, for thus do the gods appoint 
their compensations. . . . The figure vanishes into 
mists; incense vapors a vision, not a man. For of such is 
human sympathy and human love." 

And the reviewer goes on, " If Lincoln could have chosen, 
Mr. Young thinks, and justly, that he would have desired 
to be remembered as he was, and not looked at through 
any distorting medium like the aureole and crowning flame 
of martyrdom. . . . Mr. Lincoln did not impress the 
capital as a welcome personal force. Living in an element 
of detraction, he was not a popular man. It would be hard 
to recall his friends." 

No longer ago than February, 1902, a journal as strongly 
Republican as Leslie's Weekly published a paper called 
Mr. Lincoln's Habits and Tendencies, which contained the 
following: "Mr. Lincoln's neighbors in Springfield cannot 
yet realize that he was a marvelously great man. . . . 
They think there has been a mistake made, somehow; as 
he presented himself to them, he was decidedly of the earth, 
earthy." 



^Review in N. Y. Times for January 18, 1902, p. 34. 



The Real Lincoln. 207 

In order to express his regret for the fact that" " the men 
whose acquaintance with Lincohi was intimate enough to 
form any just estimate of his character, . . . did not 
more fully appreciate his statesmanship and other great 
quaUties; . . . that tliey (Ud not recognize him as the 
greatest patriot, statesman and writer of his time," Rhodes 
makes the important concession {History of the United 
States, Vol IV., p. 211, et seq.), "We cannot wonder that 
his contemporaries failed to perceive his greatness." 

How very far this "failure to appreciate his greatness" 
prevailed among the many eminent literary men of the North 
is noteworthy, for the world has been much misled about it. 
Horace Scudder, long editor of the Atlantic Monthly, says 
of the sixth stanza of the famous Commemoration Ode (Bio- 
graphy of Lowell, Vol. XL, p. 70), "Into these three score 
lines Lowell has poured a conception of Lincoln which may 
justly be said to be to-day the accepted idea which Ameri- 
cans hold of their great President. It was the final ex- 
pression of the judgment which had been slowly forming 
in Lowell's own mind, and when he summed him up in his 
last line, 'New birth of our new soul, the first American,' 
he was honestly throwing away all the doubts which had 
from time to time beset him." 

The words "the judgment which had been slowly form- 
ing," and "doubts which had from time to time beset him, 
can be understood from the following extracts, and others 
that might be made from the Biography. Vol. XL, p. 29, 
records that Lowell wrote a friend in December, 1861, 

'Rhodes, in his Hi/ftori/ of the United Stntes. \o\. III., p. ,368, note, records 
that R. Fuller, a prominent Baptist preacher, wrote Chase: "I marked the Presi- 
dent closely. . . . He is wholly inaccessible to Christian appeals, and his 
egotism will ever prevent his comprehending what patriotism means." 



208 The Real Lincoln. 

" I confess that my opinion of the government does not 
improve. ... I guess an ounce of Fremont is worth 
a pound of Long Abraham." Three years later he 
wrote Mr. Norton {\o\. XL, p. 55), "I hear bad things 
about Mr. Lincohi, and try not to beUeve them." How 
very late Lowell did throw away the doubts about Lincoln 
which had beset him is curiously shown by Scudder's re- 
luctant concession of the fact (Vol. XL, p. 70) that Lin- 
coln was not referred to at all in the ode as delivered (July 
21, 1865) by Lowell on Commemoration Day at Harvard, 
but was subsequently introduced into it. Scudder says 
(Vol. XL, p. 70), "The sixth stanza was not recited, but 
was written immediately afterward." Laboring to ex- 
plain this, he is obliged to call it "an after-thought," and 
to say, "one likes to fancy the whole force of the ode be- 
hind it," though he has shown that any such fancy would 
be entertained in defiance of the facts he records. If this 
"after-thought" did occur to Lowell "immediately" after, 
it did not occur to him, according to Scudder's own dates, 
sooner than ninety days after Lincoln's assassination ; and 
it is a curious additional example of his apotheosis, that this 
"conception of Lincoln" should have become, as Scudder 
says, "the accepted idea which Americans hold of their 
great President." The New York Nation, November 28, 
1901, says, reviewing Scudder's Life of Lowell, "Lowell's 
growing appreciation of Lincoln is an important trait. A 
good many will be grieved to learn that the great Lincoln 
passage in the Commemoration Ode was not a part of it 
when it was first read by its author, but was written sub- 
sequently." The same Nation reveals that but for Lowell's 
wife, he would have gone "hopelessly wrong on the main 
question of his^time." 



The Real Lincoln. 209 

However late Lowell's favorable judgment of Lincoln 
was formed, Scudder quotes (Vol. XL, p. 71) from a paper 
in the Century Magazine for April, LS87, headed Lincoln 
and Lowell, as follows: "Lowell was the first of the leading 
American writers to see clearly and fully and enthusiasti- 
cally the greatness of Abraham Lincoln." 

All of this testimony to the fact that people found in 
Lincoln before his death nothing remarkably good or great, 
but on the contrary found in him the reverse of goodness 
or greatness, comes from witnesses the most trustworthy 
possible, they being what lawyers call unwilling witnesses. 
So far, however, as they testify, either directly or by sug- 
gestion, that a marvelous change, intellectual, moral and 
spiritual came over Lincoln after his entrance on the duties 
of President, their evidence has no such weight as that 
recorded by them against him, and has a strong presump- 
tion against its truth. 

General Donn Piatt presents very effectively his view 
of how the change of the American world's feeling toward 
Lincoln, and of its estimate of him, came about. In Remin- 
iscences of Lincoln (p. 21) he says: "Lincoln was believed 
by contemporaries secondary in point of talent" and "Lin- 
coln as one of Fame's immortals does not appear in the 
Lincoln of 1861, whom men . . . likened to 'the 
original gorilla.'"'" "Fictitious heroes have been em- 
balmed in lies, and monuments are being reared to the 
memories of men whose real histories, when they come to 
be known, will make this bronze and marble the monuments 
of our ignorance and folly." And again he says {Remin- 
iscences of Lincoln, &c., p. 477): "With us, when a leader 



'"Schouler, in his History of the United States, Vol. VI., p. 21, use.s without 
quotation marks the exact words of Piatt above quoted. 

14 



210 The Real Lincoln. 

dies, all good men go to lying about him, and, from the 
monument that covers his remains to the last echo of the 
rural press, in speeches, sermons, eulogies and reminiscen- 
ces, we have naught but pious lies." . . . "Poor Gar- 
field . . . was almost driven to suicide by abuse while 
he lived. He fell by the hand of an assassin, and passed 
in a|| moment to the role of popular saints. . . . Popu- 
lar beliefs, in time, come to be superstitions and create 
gods and devils. Thus Washington is deified into an im- 
possible man and Aaron Burr has passed into a like impos- 
sible monster. Through this same process, Abraham Lin- 
coln, one of our truly great, has almost gone from human 
knowledge (the Reminiscences are dated 18.S6). I hear of 
him and read of him in eulogies and biographies, and fail 
to recognize the man I encountered for the first time in 
the canvass that called him from private life to be Presi- 
dent of the United States." Piatt then goes on to de- 
scribe" a conference that he and General Schenck had with 
Lincoln in his home in vSpringfield. "I soon discovered 
that this strange and strangely-gifted man, while not at 
all cynical, was a sceptic; his view of human nature was 
low; ... he unconsciously accepted for himself and 
his party the same low line that he awarded the South. 
Expressing no sympathy for the slave, he laughed at the 
Abolitionists^^ as a disturbing element easily controlled, 

^^Reminiscences of Lincoln, &c., p. 480: "Lincoln had just been nominated for 
the first time." 

i^Mrs. Lincoln was present, and General Piatt adds, "One of Mrs. Lincoln's 
interjected remarks was, 'The country will find how we regard that Abolition 
sneak, Seward.' " Rhodes says, in his History of the United States. Vol. II., p. 
32.'5: " Lincoln was not, however, in any sense of the word, an Abolitionist. Whit- 
ney, too, says, in his On Circuit with Lincoln, p. 6.34, "He had no intention to make 
voters of the negroes — in fact their welfare did not enter his policy at all." Rhodes 
quotes, in his History of the United States, Vol. IV.. p. 64, note, testimony of General 
Wadsworth, who was in daily communication, frequently for five or six hours, 
with the President and Stanton, as follows: "He never heard him speak of anti- 
slavery men otherwise than as 'radicals,' 'abohtionists;' and of the 'nigger ques- 
tion' he frequently spoke." 



The Real Lincoln. 211 

without showing any cUshke to the slave-holders. . . . 
We were not (p. 481) at a loss to get at the fact and the 
reason for it, in the man before us. Descended from the 
poor-whites of a slave State, through many generations, 
he inherited the contempt, if not the hatred, held by that 
class for the negroes. A self-made man, . . . his 
strong nature w^as built on what he inherited, and he could 
no more feel a sympathy for that wretched race than he 
could for the horse he worked or the hog he killed.'^ In 
this he exhibited the marked trait that governed his public 
life. . . . He knew and saw clearly that the people 
of the free States not only had no sympathy with the aboli- 
tion of slavery, but held fanatics, as Abolitionists were 
called, in utter abhorrence. While it seemed a cheap philan- 
thropy, and therefore popular, to free another man's slave, 
the unrequited toil of the slave was more valuable to the 
North than to the South. With our keen business instincts, 
we of the free States utilized the brutal w^ork of the master. 
They made, without saving, all that we accumulated. . . 
Wendell Phillips, the silver-tongued advocate of human 
rights, was, while Mr. Lincoln was talking to us, being ostra- 
. cised at Boston and rotten-egged at Cincinnati. . . . 
The Abolitionist was (p. 482) himted and imprisoned under 
the shadow of Bunker Hill Monument as keenly as he was 
tracked by bloodhounds at the South." 

Then General Piatt candidly repudiates the false pre- 
tensions that are so often made to lofty, benevolent pur- 
pose in those who "conquered the rebellion," and ends as 
follows: "We are quick to forget the facts and slow to 
recognize the truths that knock from under us our preten- 

i3"Herndon's Lincoln, Vol. V., p. 74 et seq., tells a story of Lincoln's barbarous 
cruelty, etc." 



212 The Real Lincoln. 

tious claims to high philanthropy. As I have said, aboli- 
tionism was not only unpopular when the war broke out, 
but it was detestetl. ... I remember when the 
Hutchinsons were driven from the camps of the Potomac 
Army by the soldiers, for singing their Abolition songs, 
and I remember well that for nearly two years of our service 
as soldiers we were engaged in returning slaves to their 
masters when the poor creatures sought shelter in our 
lines." 



CHAPTER XXVIIL 

What this Book Would Teach. 

T~N VIEW of what this book presents, those who have 
-L learned to rate Lincohi highest can hardly refuse 
to modify their estimate of him, and it was with the 
purpose to effect such a change in men's minds, in the 
interest of truth, that the task was undertaken. But the 
search in Northern records has taught the writer another 
truth, and a more important one, that he was far from 
seeking. To gain the ear of the people of Northern pre- 
judices by presenting no testimony but that of Northern 
witnesses was the plan adopted in seeking materials for 
this sketch. To win more patient hearing from people of 
Southern prejudices, it had been contemplated to put on 
the title page as motto Fas est ah hoste doceri. But the search 
showed that the North and the West were never enemies 
of the South: that those who disapproved, deplored, bit- 
terly censured secession, for the most part disapproved 
yet more coercion of sister States and emancipation of the 
negroes, while a vast part thought the South was asking 
what she had a right to ask. 

Should we forget these things as matters of reproach 
upon our country's past? Should we not rather recall 
them now and earnestly weigh them and take courage from 
the recollection that not in the border States only, but in 
ever}^ State, many men were found ready to make formid- 
able resistance with loss of fortune, liberty, and life to what 
its most ardent eulogists call a complete military despotism? 

(213) 



214 The Real Lincoln. 

May their sons work with us to prevent or, if need be, to 
resist hke evils in the future! 

So it is to forgetfuhiess of the sad quarrel — to love, not 
to resentment or hate — that the lessons of this book would 
lead its readers. Those who taught that there was ''an 
irrepressible conflict" between the North and South were 
but a handful of fanatics — the same who denounced the 
Constitution of the United States as a " covenant with hell, 
and a league with death. "^ 

Is it not shown in this book that it would have been 
nearer the truth to say that the North and the South were 
essentially of one accord on the two questions, whether a 
State might, at least as a revolutionary right, withdraw 
from the Union, and whether the negroes should be emanci- 
pated? 

Is it not an immense gain to know that the facts were as 
set forth above, rather than go on believing the story that 
has spread so widely — that one side carried fire and sword 
into the homes of the other as a punishment they believed 
the sufferer well deserved? Can those who suffered the 
great wrong really forgive and forget while events are so 
recorded in history? 



^Such, Gen. B. F. Butler says, was . . . "the proposition of the Free- 
Soil party, as enunciated by William Lloyd Garrison" as late as 1849. 



Appendix 



ADAMS, CHARLES FRANCIS (the father), was Minister to England 
during Lincohi's whole administration. He was of the family 
that had given two Presidents to the United States, and his father 
and his grandfather had been Ministers to England before him. 

ADAMS, CHARLES FRANCIS, son of the above, served in Union 
Army throughout the War between the States, and became brevet 
Brigadier-General of Volunteers — now President of Massachusetts 
Historical Society. His extreme partisan attitude is shown by 
the extract below from his address in Chicago, as late as June 17, 
1902: "As to those who sympathized with the deliberate disunion 
policy, and in the councils of the government plotted for its over- 
throw, while sworn to its support, Mr. Adams held that it was 
unnecessary to speak. 'Such were traitors,' says he, and 'if they 
had had their deserts thej' would have been hanged.' That in cer- 
tain 'well-remembered instances this course was not pursued is 
to my mind even yet much to be deplored,' "he adds. 

ANDREWS, E. BENJAMIN, once President of Brown University, 
is still prominent in educational work. He shows in his History 
of the United States (Vol. II., pages 64, 77, 81 et seq.) that he is an 
ardent Abolitionist and an admirer of Lincoln; calls John Brown 
(p. 61, et seq.) "a misguided hero," and perverts history so wildly 
as to say (p. 89) that "Virginia and Tennessee were finally carried 
into secession by the aid of troops who swarmed in from the se- 
ceded States, and turned the elections into a farce. Unionists 
in the Virginia Convention were given the choice to vote secession, 
leave, or be hanged. Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware and Mary- 
land resisted all attempts to drag them into the Confederacy." . . . 

BURGESS, JOHN W., Ph. D., LL.D., is now Professor of Political 
Science in Columbia University. He says in his Civil War and 
Constitution that "absolute trutlifulness was the fundamental 
principle of his (Lincoln's) character," and that "he was on the 
inside a true gentleman, although tlie outward polish failed him 
almost completelv." 

( 215 ) 



216 Appendix. 

BUTLER, GENERAL B. F., was made by Lincoln Major-General 
and one of General Grant's corps commanders, and was Lincoln's 
first choice for Vice-President in his second election. 

BEECHER, REV. HENRY WARD, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, 
was a strong Republican and Abolitionist, and a very prominent 
supporter of the war. 

BOUTWELL, GEORGE S., was in Congress from Massachusetts, 
aided in organizing the Republican party in 1854, and in procuring 
Lincoln's election, and was made by Lincoln the first Commissioner 
of the Internal Revenue. (See name of Rice.) Boutwell's whole 
paper, and notably in the last pages, is full of the most ardent 
eulogies of Lincoln, strong and unqualified as any other. 

BROOKS, PHILLIPS, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
in Massachusetts, His Life and Letters by Alexander V. G. Allen 
(New York, E. P. Dutton, 1900) Vol. II., p. 9, says, "In Phila- 
delphia he had appeared almost as a reformer and agitator, with 
a work to do outside of the pulpit, which rivalled in importance 
and popular interest his work as a preacher. He had thrown him- 
self into the cause of the abolition of slavery with an intensity and 
rare eloquence which was not surpassed by any one. He had 
espoused the cause of the emancipated slaves, pleading in most 
impassioned manner for tlieir right to suffrage in order to their 
complete manhood. . . . From his activity in these moral 
causes he had become as widely known, as by his eloquence in the 
pulpit." For evidence (Life and Letters, by Allen, Vol. I., p. 531) 
of his partisanship, see a prayer he made in the streets of Phila- 
delphia on the downfall of the Confederacy. In the large page 
and a half there is not a reference to the miseries of the defeated 
nor an aspiration for the amendment of their condition, physical 
or spiritual. 

CHANDLER, ZACHARIAH, SENATOR, was one of the organizers 
of the Republican party in 1S54; United vStates Senator from 1857 
to 1877; Secretary of the Interior. Appleton's Cyclopaedia of 
American Biography calls him "a firm friend of President Lincoln." 

J^ CHANNING, EDWARD;, Professor of History in Harvard, and author 
of Short History of the United States, quotations from which show 
his partisanship. 



Appendix. 217 

CHASE, SALMON P., was Lincoln's Secretary of tlie Treasury tiU 
made by him Chief Justice. 

CHESNEY, CAPT. C. C, Royal Engineers, Professor of Military His- 
tory, Sandhurst College, England, published in 1863 A Military 
View of Recent Campaigns in Virginia and Maryland. 

COFFEE, TITIAN J., says of Lincoln (Reminiscences of Lincoln, p. 246) 
... "The better his character and conduct are understood, 
the brighter will he shine among those names that the world will 
not willingly let die." 

CURTIS, GEORGE WILLIAM, long editor of Harper's Weekly, was 
a widely known scholar and author. The quotations from his 
pen show how he stood towards the war and .Abolition. His pre- 
judice was bitter enougli to make him institute (Orations and Ad- 
dresses, Vol. III., p. 10) a parallel between Robert E. Lee and 
Benedict Arnold; and he must be accounted an unwilling witness, 
since he adds (Vol. III., p. 219), "Heaven knows I speak it with 
no willingness," after his testimony that is quoted of his own 

/ people's resistance to emancipation and to coercion. 

^ cAlTTENDEN, L. E., was Register of the Treasury. The words 
/ quoted show his attitude toward Lincoln. 

DANA, CHARLES A., was long managing editor of the New York 
Tribune, took an important part in procuring Lincoln's election 
and was his Assistant Secretary of War. See his book. Recollec- 
tions of the Civil War, with the Leaders at Washington, &c., N. Y. 
Appleton & Co., 1898. 

DANA, RICHARD H., was a distinguished author and law-writer, 
was nominated by President Grant for Minister to England, and 
was a representative of the best culture of Massachusetts. It was 
he who proposed, in Faneuil Hall, to hold the Southern States 
"in the grasp of war for thirty years." 

DAVIS, HENRY WINTER, though a Marylander, was an ardent sup- 
porter in Congress of the war and of emancipation. 

DAVIS, DAVID, is named by McClure in liis Lincoln with Leonard 
Swett, Ward H. Lamon and William H. Herndon as one of the 



218 Appendix. 

four men "closest to Lincoln before and after his election." He 
was made by Lincoln one of the Supreme Court. Justices, and 
finally executor of his estate. 

DAWES, HENRY L., represented Massachusetts in the House for 
nine sessions, beginning in 1857; succeeded Sumner in the Senate, 
and continued there till he declined re-election in 1893. 

DEPEW, CHAUNCEY, says in Reminiscences of Lincoln, &c., that Lin- 
coln was "among the few supremely great men this country has 
produced." 

DOLTGLAS, FREDERICK, was one of the most honored and respected 
colored men during his long life, with everything to prejudice him 
in favor of Lincoln. 

DUNNING, E. O., was chaplain in the Union army. His words 
quoted show his attitude. 

DUNNING, WILLIAM ARCHIBALD, Professor of History in Colum- 
bia Uni^'ersity, in his Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction, 
pictures -with merciless exultation (pages 247 to 252) the years of 
hvuniliation and torture imposed on the South during the "recon- 
struction." 

EVERETT, EDWARD, had been Minister to England, and was such 
another man as Richard H. Dana, ranking even higher; was in 
the House or the Senate, or Secretary of State, or Governor, or 
President of Harvard for twenty-nine years, and then candidate 
for Vice-President. 

FISKE, JOHN, historian and lecturer. His Old Virginia arid Her 
Neighbors shows his Northern bias. 

FOULKE, WILLIAM DUDLEY, shows in his words quoted his par- 
tisan attitude. 

FREMONT, J. C, ran against Buclianan as " Free-Soil " candidate for 
the presidency. As Major-General he proclaimed freedom to the ne- 
groes in his command before Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. 
Schouler attributes to him {History of the United States, Vol. VI., 
p. 98) "patriotism, integrity and humane sentiment." The title 



Appendix. 219 

page of the pamphlet quoted is as follows: "Fund Publication, 
No. 27. President Lincoln and the Chicago Memorial on Emanci- 
pation; a paper read before the Maryland Historical Society of 
December 12, 1887, by Rev. W. W. Patton, D. D., LL. D., Presi- 
dent of Howard University, Baltimore, 1888." 

FRENCH, WILLIAM M., shows in his words quoted his partisan 
attitude. 

GARRISON, WILLIAM LLOYD. Tlie Dictionary of the United 
States History, 1492-1894, by J. Franklin Jamison, Ph. D., says, 
"Garrison's influence in the anti-slavery cause was greater than 
that of any other man;" started Liberator newspaper in 1831, and 
ran it till 1865. 

GAY, SIDNEY HOWARD, becamel in 1844 editor of the Anti-Slavery 
Standard. Senator Henry Wilson speaks of him as the man who 
deserved well of his country because he kept the Neiv York Tribune 
a war paper in spite of its owner, Horace Greeley. 

GILMORE, JAMES R. Appleton's Encyclopaedia .says that a mission 
to Jefferson Davis made by Gilmore had the effect of assuring the 
re-election of Lincoln. 

GODKIN, E. L., was long and until lately the able and useful editor 
of the Nation, but was utterly intolerant as to all that concerns 
secession and slavery. 

GORHAM, G. C, author of a late life of Stanton, wliicli shows in what 
is quoted his partisan attitude. 

GRANT, U. S., General and President, is obviously the most trust- 
worthy of all witnesses in the matters about which he is quoted. 

GREELEY, HORACE. A. K. McClure calls (Our Presidents and How 
We Make Them, p. 243) Greeley "one of tlie noblest, purest, and 
ablest of the great men of the land ; " calls Greeley's Tribune (p. 1 55) 
"then the mo.st influential journal ever published in this country," 
and says {Lincoln and Men of the War Time, p. 225 and p. 295) , 
"Greeley was in closer touch with the active, loyal sense of the 
people than even the President (Lincoln) himself," and that "Mr. 



lEdward Everett Hale in .fames Itiissell Lowell, His Friends, &c., pp. 174-5. 



220 Appendix. 

Greeley's Tribune was the most widely read Republican journal 
in the country, and it was unquestionably the most potent in 
modelling Republican sentiment. It reached the intelligent 
masses of the people in every State in the Union." Again McClure 
says (p. 300), "Greeley Avas one of the founders of the Republican 
party, and did more to make it successful than any other one man 
of the nation." . . . Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews says2, "Gree- 
ley and his party were tlie chief founders of the Republican party, 
and the most effective moulders of its policy. The influence of 
the paper before and during the war was incalculable, far exceeding 
that of any other sheet in America. Hardly a Whig or Republi- 
can voter in all the North that did not take or read it. It gave 
tone to the minor organs of its party, and no politician upon either 
side acted upon slavery without considering what the Tribune 
would say." Gilmore {Recollections of Lincoln, p. 54) has a letter 
from Lincoln to Robert J. Walker, which says of Horace Greeley : 
"He is a great power; having liim firmly behind me will be as help- 
ful to me as an army of an hundred thousand men." Channing 
{Short History of the United States, p. 300) calls Greeley" one of the 
ablest men of the time." 

HALE, EDWARD EVERETT, of Boston, weU known author and 
editor; a strong partisan of the North. 

HAMLIN, HANNIBAL, was Lincoln's Vice-President. 

HAPGOOD, NORMAN. His Abraham Lincoln is the latest import- 
ant biography, published in 1899. It shows the author's attitude 
of admiration for Lincoln in the first page of the preface, declaring 
that he was "unequaUed since Washington in service to the 
nation," and quoting the verses — 

He was the North, the South, the East, the West; 

The thrall, the master, all of us in one. 
See under names of Herndon and of Lamon his endorsement of 
their "revelations." 

HAY, JOHN, Secretary of State under McKinley and Roosevelt, came 
from Springfield with Luicoln, and was his private secretary, as 
Nicolay was, to his death. Their joint work, Abraham Lincoln, 
in ten large volumes, makes the most favorable presentation of 



^History of the Last Quarter Century in the United States, Vol. II., p. 58. 



Appendix. 221 

lancohi of all that have been made. They are the editors, too, 
of the only collection of Lincoln's complete works. See the name 
of Nicolay in this Appendix. 

HERNDON, WILLIAM H. His Lincoln, dated 1888, sets forth on 
the title page tliat Lincoln was for twenty years his friend and 
law partner, and says in the preface (p. 10): "Mr. Ijincoln was my 
warm, demoted friend; I always loved him, and I revere his name 
today." He quotes with approval and reaffirms Lamon's views 
as to the duty to tell the faults along with the Adrtues, and says 
in the preface (p. 10): "At last the truth vnll come out, and no 
man need hope to evade it;" and he betrays his sense of the seri- 
ousness of the faults he has to record by calling them in the pre- 
face (p. 9) "ghastly exposures," and by saying in the preface (p. 8) 
that to conceal them would be as if the Bible had concealed the 
facts about Uriah in telling the story of King David; and the very 
latest biographer, Hapgood, writing with all the light yet given 
to the world, says in his preface (p. 8): "Herndon has told the 
President's early life with a refreshing honesty and with more 
information than any one else." Morse, the next latest biographer, 
also connnends Herndon's dealing in this matter. See, too, on 
page 203 of this book, Horace White's testimony, that "The world 
owes more to Mr. Wm. H. Herndon for this particular knowledge" 
— that is of his life before he was President — "than to all other 
persons." See, in this Appendix, under Swett's name how Hern- 
don's extraordinarily close relations with Mr. Lincoln are shown, 
and see under Lamon's name how Herndon's testimony and La- 
mon's have gone uncontradicted. Students need to be warned 
of a discovery made by the author since the first edition of The 
Real Lincoln was published. The geimine book of Herndon about 
Lincoln is stiU to be found in tlie Pratt Library and the Peabody 
Library of Baltimore, and in the Congressional Library in Wash- 
ington, in three volumes, and is entitled as follows: "Herndon's 
'Lincoln; The True Story of a Great Life.' (Etiam in minimis 
major.) 'The History and Personal Recollections of Abraham 
Lincoln,' by William H. Herndon, for Twenty Years His Friend 
and Partner, and Jesse William Weik, A. M., Chicago, New York 
and San Francisco. Bedford, Clarke & Co., Publishers, London. 
Henry J. Drane, Lovel's Court, Paternoster row." The quotations 
above given of Herndon's avowal of his purpose to conceal nothing, 
come from this book. In place of this genuine book another 



222 Appendix. 

has been substituted, in two volumes, with the same title page, 
except that it is published by D. Appleton & Co. There is an 
introduction by Horace Wliite, but no intimation of the suppres- 
sion of any part of the work of Herndon, and his avowals of his 
purpose to tell all, good and bad, about his hero, are copied as 
above from the genuine book. Every word, however, of the "reve- 
lations" and "ghastly exposures" is suppressed. Without 
acknowledgment of any omission, five pages of the genuine book 
(beginning wdth the second line of fiftieth page of the first volume) 
are omitted. In these pages Herndon records a satire written by 
Lincoln, called "The First Chronicle of Reuben," and describes 
the exceedingly base and indecent device by which Lincoln brought 
about the events which gave opportunity for the satire and adds 
some verses written and circulated by Lincoln which he considers 
even more vile than the "Chronicle." Of these, verses Lamon 
says, "It is impossible to transcribe them." Leland (Abraham 
Lincoln, &c., pp. 12 and 13) quotes Lamon and Herndon, and 
calls (p. 42) Herndon "a most estimable man, to whose researches 
the world owes nearly all that is known of Lincoln's early life 
and family." Yet Leland gives a list of the authorities he uses 
and omits from it both Lamon and Herndon. In like manner 
some influence has caused the American Encycloptedia of Bio- 
graphy to omit Herndon and Lamon. 

HOLLAND, J. G., was a popular author, and was long editor of Scrib- 
ner's Magazine. For his ardent admiration of Lincoln, see the 
last page of his Abraham Lincoln. 

HUNTER, DAVID, was made Major-General by Lincoln, and was 
one of the most ardent Abolitionists. 

JULIAN, GEORGE W., says (Reminiscences of Lincoln, &c., p. 64), 
"Every lineament of his grand public career should have the set- 
ting of his rare personal worth. In all the qualities that go to 
make up character, he was a thoroughh^ genuine man. His sense 
of justice was perfect and ever present. His integrity was second 
onlj' to Washington's, and his ambition was as stainless." 

KASSON, JOHN ADAMS, was a conspicuous Republican in Congress, 
honored by Lincoln with important assigmnents at home and 
abroad in the Post-Office Department. 



Appendix. 223 

KEIFER, JOSEPH WARREN, was Major-General of Volunteers; 
was member of Congress from Ohio and Speaker of the House; 
in 1900 WTote Slavery and Four Years of War, G. P. Putnam, pub- 
lisher, which book shows his partisan attitude. 

LAMON, WARD H. ; published his Life of Lincoln in 1872. He appears 
in the accounts of Mr. Lincoln's life in the West as constantly 
associated in the most friendly relations with him. He accom- 
panied the family in the journey to Washington, and was selected 
by Lincoln himself (see McClure's Lincoln, p. 46) as the one pro- 
tector to accompany and to guard him from the assassination that 
he apprehended so causelessly (see Lamon's Lincoln, p. 513) in 
his midnight passage through Baltimore to his first inauguration. 
He was made a United States Marshal of the District in order 
(McClure's Lincoln, p. 67) that Lincoln might have him always at 
hand. Schouler {History of the United States, p. 614) says that 
Lamon as Marshal "made himself body-guard to the man he 
loved." Though Lamon recognizes and sets forth wdth great 
clearness (p. 181) his duty to tell the whole truth, good and bad, 
and especially (p. 486, et seq.) to correct the statements of indis- 
creet admirers who have tried to make Lincoln out a religious 
man, and, though he indignantly remonstrates against such stories 
as making his hero a hypocrite, the book shows an exceedingly 
high estimate of the friend of his lifetime. Dorothy Lamon {Recol- 
lections of Abraham Lincoln, p. 168) quotes Lamon's own words 
as follows: "It was my good fortune to have known Mr. Lincoln 
long and well — so long and so intimately that, as the shadows 
lengthen and the years recede, I am more and more impressed 
by the rugged grandeur and nobility of his character, his strengtli 
of intellect and his singular purity of heart. Surely I am the last 
man on earth to say or do aught in derogation of his matchless 
worth, or to criticise the fair fame of him who was, during eighteen 
of the most eventful years of iny life, a constant, considerate, 
and never-failing friend." Both Morse and Hapgood commend 
Lamon and Herndon for their "revelations." The careful search 
in many records for the material for this book has not found a 
single attempt to deny tlie truth of Herndon's testimony, or of 
Lamon's. But the search did find a curious proof of the strait 
to wliich some one has been driven to conceal Lamon's testimony. 
In the Pratt Lil)rary in Baltimore, Maryland, is a book with a 
title as follows: "Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, 1847-1865, by 



224 Appendix, 

Ward Hill Lamon, edited by Dorothy Lamon, Chicago, A. E. 
McChirg & Co., 1895." Nowhere in this book of several hundred 
pages is found an intimation of the fact that the same Ward Hill 
Lamon published in 1872 the Life of Lincoln quoted frequently 
in this book, or that he had published any book about Ijincoln, 
and although these "Recollections" do contain the avowal that 
appears in the Life of Lincoln, that Lamon thinks it his duty to 
conceal none of the faults of his hero, every word is omitted of 
the "revelations" and "ghastly exposures" about Lincoln's 
attitude towards morals and religion that are recorded in Lamon's 
genuine book. Bancroft, in his very lately published Life of 
Seward, quotes (Vol. II., p. 42) I^amon from this late book, making 
no reference to the genuine book, and a paper in the Baltimore 
Sun of February 25, 1901, does the same. See in this Appendix 
what is said under the names of Herndon and Swett. 

LELAND, CHARLES GODFREY, is author of a book once very 
popular, Hans Breitman's Ballads. In his Abraham Lincoln, and 
the Abolition of Slavery in the United States (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 
New York, 1881), he says (Author's Preface, p. 2), "Lincoln's 
career also proves that extremes meet, since in no despotism is 
there an example of any one who governed a country so thoroughly 
in detail as did this Republican of Republicans." For Leland's 
bitter partisan.ship, see pp. 109, 121, 122, 186, 200, 202 and 220 
to 222. 

LOCKE, DAVID R. (Petroleum V. Nasby). Born in New York in 
1833; an American political satyrist; author of Nasby's letters, 
after 1860, in Toledo Blade. 

LOGAN, JOHN A., Major-GeJieral. His book about the war, The 
Great Conspiracy, shows througliout, as in its title, his partisan 
attitude. He served under Grant at Vicksburg, and under Sher- 
man in Georgia; was unsuccessful Republican candidate for vice- 
presidency in 1864. 

LOWELL, JAS. RUSSELL, long professor in Harvard; editor of At- 
lantic Monthly 1857 to 1862, and of the North American Review 
1863 to 1872; Minister to Spain and to England. 

MARKLAND, A. H., was a supporter of Mr. Lincoln for the presidency 
the first time; was in charge of the army mail service, and was 



The Real Lincoln. 225 

Commission-Colonel on General Grant's staff in November, 1863. 
He was the only person besides President Lincoln and General 
Grant who ever had authority to pass at will through all the 
armies of the United States, thereby showing the confidential 
relations between him and the President and General Grant. 

McCarthy, CHARLES H., is author of Lincoln's Plan of Recon- 
struction. Page 497 in eulogy of Lincoln nowhere surpassed. 

McCLURE, A. K. In his Lincoln and Men of the War Time, and in 
his Our Presidents and How We Make Them, the author's intimate 
association with Lincoln is shown in many places (Lincoln, p. 112, 
et seq.), and his attitude towards his hero may be measured by 
the folloA\ing tribute (p. 5, et seq.): "He has written the most illus- 
trious records of American history, and his name and fame must 
be immortal while liberty shall have worshippers in our land." 

McCULL(Jlf, HUGH, author of Men and Measures of Half a Century, 
was Secretary of the Treasury under Lincoln, Johnson and Grant. 
He attributes to Lincoln (Reminiscences of His Associates, p. 424) 
"Unwavering adherence to the principles which he avowed — . . 
personal righteousness — . . . love of country — .... 
humanity — ..." 

MORSE, JOHN T., published in 1892 by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 
his Lincoln, one of the American Statesmen Series. It shows 
throughout, but notably in the last four pages, as ardent an ad- 
miration for Lincoln as any other biography. It concedes (Vol. I., 
p. 192) the truth of the "revelations of Messrs. Hemdon and 
Lamon" and the duty and necessity that rested on them to record 
these truths. Morse is next to the latest of the biographers. 
The Harvard Graduates' Magazine said of the book: "As a life 
of Lincoln it has no competitors; as a political history of the Union 
side during the Civil War, it is the most comprehensive and, in 
proportion to its range, the most complete." 

NICOLAY, JOHN G. (like John Hay), came with Lincoln from Spring- 
field, and was his private secretary to the end. In the Author's 
Preface to the great work — "Abraham Lincoln" — written by him 
and John Hay (see his name in this Appendix), is found the fol- 
lowing (Vol. L, p. 9): "It is the almost unbroken testimony of 
his contemporaries that by virtue of certain high traits of char- 

15 



226 The Real Lincoln. 

acter, in certain momentous lines of purpose and achievement, 
he was incomparably the greatest man of his time. . . . The 
voice of hostile faction is silent or unheeded; even criticism is 
gentle and timid (p. 12). We knew Mr. Lincoln intimately 
before his election to the presidency. We came from Illinois to 
Washington with him, and remained at his side and in his service — 
separately or together — until the day of his death. . . . The 
President's correspondence, both official and private, passed 
through our hands; he gave us his full confidence, (p. 14) . . . 
each of us has written an equal portion of the work. . . . We 
each assume responsibility, not only for the whole, but for all the 
details." . . . 

PARIS, THE COUNT OF, was a volunteer in the Union army. See 
History of Civil War in America, translated by Tasij^stro, Phila- 
delphia, 1875, Vol. IV., pages 2 to 7, for his partisan attitude. 

PATTON, W. W., was President of Harvard University, for negroes, 
in Washington, D. C. -i rt^^"- ix-^ d. 

PIATT, DONN, GENERAL, in Reminiscences of Lincoln (p. 449), 
refers to Lincoln as "the greatest figure looming up in our history," 
and as one "who -wTought out for us our manhood and our self- 
respect," and says (pp. 499-500), ... we accept the sad, 
rugged, homely face and love it. . . . Clara Morris describes 
Piatt (in her Life on the Stage) , as a gentleman of delightful social 
and domestic traits. (See name of Rice.) 

PHILLIPS, WENDELL. Appleton's Encyclopedia says he "began 
as Abolitionist leader in 1837 . . . made a funeral oration 
over John Brown . . . had the Anti-Slavery Standard for 
his organ." 

POORE, BEN PERLEY, was a distinguished editor, but best known 
as Washington correspondent; was Major in the Eighth Massachu- 
setts Volunteers. His book, The Conspiracy Trial for the Murder 
of Abraham Lincoln, shows his partisan attitude. (See name of 
Rice.) 

RAYMOND, HENRY J., assistant editor of the New York Tribune, 
and founder of New York Times; Republican Member of Congress 
from New York 1865-1867; author of Life and State Papers of 
Abraham Lincoln. 



ThelReal Lincoln. 227 

RHODES, JAMES FORD, is author of an exceedingly valuable six- 
volume History of the United States that (Vol. IV., p. 50) eulogizes 
Lincoln ardently- 

RICE, ALLEN THORNDIKE, was long editor of the North American 
Review, a leading Republican organ. He is editor, too, of Remin- 
iscences of Lincoln by Distinguished Men of His Time, frequently 
referred to in this book. Rice supplies the Introduction and is more 
or less responsible for all that is quoted from Piatt, Usher, Boutwell , 
Poo re and Depew. 

RIDPATH, JOHN CLARK, professor in Indiana Asbury University, 
published his History of the United States in 1883, of which see 
page 522 to learn his attitude. 

ROPES, JOHN CODMAN, author of the Story of the Civil War, wliich 
eulogizes Lincoln. No historian of his day ranks higher. 

RUSSELL, WILLIAM HOWARD. His My Diary, North and South, 
published in the London Times, shows a bitter aversion to slavery, 
and to almost everything he saw in the South, and he shows plainly 
his judgment that it was the right and duty of Lincoln to crush 
secession. George William Curtis says in his Orations (Vol. I., 
p. 139) about Russell, that "Europe sent her ablest correspondent 
to describe the signs of the times, and that Russell saw and gave 
a fair representation of the public sentiment." Adam's Life of 
Adams (p. 151, et seq.) speaks of Rus-sell's Diary as "the views 
and conclusions of an unprejudiced ob.server through the medium 
of the most influential journal in the world." 

SCHOULER, JAMES. His History of the United States (p. 631 , et seq.) 
shows that no biographer is more eulogistic of Lincoln. Volume 
VI. begins with, "The further we recede from the era of our great 
civil strife, the more colossal stands out the figure of Abraham 
Lincoln." . . . See also Vol. VI., page 624 to end. He calls 
the John Brown raid (Vol. VI., p. 437) "a sporadic and nonsensical 
movement;" says "the pitiful and deluded assailants" were not 
treated "with the decent magnanimity for which so good an oppor- 
tunity was offered, and that (p. 438) "the slave master showed on 
this occasion his innate tyranny and cruelty towards an adversary." 
He likens Browii to Charlotte Corday, saying the difference was 
that her action was "reasonable," Brown's "unreasonable." 



228 The Real Lincoln. 

SHERMAN, JOHN, President McKinley's first Secretary of State, 
was a very prominent Republican leader during the war, and 
served in the Union army with sword, tongue, pen and purse, 
raising largely at his own expense a brigade known as Sherman's 
Brigade. 

SHERMAN, GENERAL W. T., the man who next after Grant was 
"Conquerer of the Rebellion." 

SEWARD, Wn.LIAM H., was Secretary of State during Lincoln's 
whole administration, and accounted one of his ablest supporters. 

SMITH, GOLDWIN, a distinguished historian and pubUcist; professor 
of History for two years in Oxford, and for three years in Cornell. 
In his United States, an Outline of Political History (p. 221, et seq.), 
it is claimed that Lincoln was a Christian. A dreadful picture 
is given (p. 222 to 225) of master and slave — of the slave "over- 
worked and tortured with the lash" — ... of "fetters and 
blood-hounds" — ■ ... of "constant dread of slave insurrec- 
tions"; that "it is not amongst whips, manacles and blood-hounds 
that the character of a true gentleman can be trained;" . . . 
that "with slavery always goes lust;" . . . of "a clergy 
degraded by cringing to slavery." 

STANTON, EDWIN M., was often called Lincoln's "Great War 
Secretary." Appleton's Encyclopedia says: "None ever ques- 
tioned his honesty, his patriotism or his capability." 

STANWOOD, EDWARD. His History of the Presidency is a recog- 
nized authority, with no Southern leanings. 

STEVENS, THADDEUS, entered Congress in 1858, and from that 
time until his death was one of the RepubUcan leaders, and the 
chief advocate for emancipating and arming the negroes. 

SUMNER, CHARLES, was long Senator from Massachusetts, and 
was a leader in support of the war and emancipation. 

SWETT, LEONARD. See his very close relations to Lincoln, shown 
under the name of David Davis in this Appendix. 

TARBELL, IDA, shows constantly in her histories the most ardent 
admiration for Lincoln. 



The Real Lincoln. 229 

TRUMBULL, LYIVIAN, United States Senator, declined to oppose 
Lincoln for the nomination in 1860, and was one of the first to 
propose in the Senate the abolition of slavery. 

USHER, J. P., was in Lincoln's Cabinet as Secretary of the Interior. 
He says, in Reminiscences of Lincoln by His Associates, page 77, 
"Mr. Lincoln's greatness was founded upon his devotion to truth, 
his humanity and his innate sense of justice to all." 

WAR OF THE REBELLION. Official Records of the Union and 
Confederate Armies. We have a very extraordinary light upon 
the history of that period in a publication made by the Congress 
of the United States which, beginning in 1870, has now grown to 
more than 100 large volumes, "The War of the Rebellion, Official 
Records of the Union and Confederate Armies." The history of 
the war that has been written since the war by Jefferson Davis 
or U. S. Grant, Alexander Stephens or Charles A. Dana, Joseph E. 
Johnston, John Codman Ropes, and all the rest who have under- 
taken it, may be distrusted as the work of partisans, or of men too 
near in time to see things correctly. But we are getting down to 
the real truth of history when we have the very words used by 
Mr. Lincoln and his Cabinet members, by General McClellan and 
his subordinates in their proclamations, orders, reports and cor- 
respondence during the months when active "disloyalty" was 
being repressed in all the States of the Union that were within 
reach of Secretary Seward's "little bell," and especially in Mary- 
land, Kentucky, Missouri, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and New York. 
It will be seen that none of the extracts are taken from the 
Confederate record, they are all from the Union records, and in 
all cases the volume and page are referred to. 

WADE, BEN, was one of the most prominent Republican leaders. 
Ohio Senator from 1851 to 1869. Anti-slavery leader. Favored 
confiscation in the war, and emancipation. 

WEBB, ALEXANDER S., LL. D., professor in College of City of New 
York, says, as follows, in his Campaigns of the Civil War, III; 
McClellan' s Campaign of 1862, preface, page 6, that "In speaking 
of the President of the United States and his advisers, he (the 
author) must not be considered as rescinding or changing at any 
time his constant and repeated expressions of admiration, affec- 
tion and regard for the President himself. He appeals 'to the 



230 The Real Lincoln. 

closing chapter ... to prove that he is as loyal to that noble 
man's memory as ever he was to him in person, and is but doing 
the work of an honest historian in recording the sad tale of the 
want of unity, the want of confidence, tlie want of co-operation 
between the Administration and the General commanding the 



WELLING, JOS. C., editor of National Intelligencer at Washington 
during the Civil War; afterwards President of St. John's College, 
Annapolis; then President of Columbia University. 

WELLES, EDGAR THADDEUS, was Lincoln's Secretary of the 
Navy. 

WHITE, HORACE, had a distinguished career in journalism for 
forty years; was editor of Chicago Tribune and of the New York 
Evening Post. 

WHITNEY, HENRY CLAY, shows his exceedingly high estimate 
of Lincoln in the last page of his On Circxdt with. Lincoln. 

WILSON, WOODROW, was long a distinguished and popular pro- 
fessor in Princeton, and is now President. For his admiring atti- 
tude towards Lincoln, see pages 216 and 217 of his Disunion and 
Reunion, and Vol. IV., page 256 of his History of the American 
People. 

WINTHROP, ROBERT H., was eminent as a scholar and statesman; 
was ten years in the House, and then in the Senate from Massach- 
usetts. 

YOUNG, JOHN RUSSELL, had a distinguished career in journalism, 
especially in the Tribune group with Horace Greeley. 



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